Windfalls

BOSTON
PUBLIC
LIBRARY

WINDFALLS.

WINDFALLS.

"FRUIT THAT IS BLOWN DOWN FROM THE TREE."

Evelyn.
"A TREE THAT HAS BEEN PROSTRATED BY THE WIND."

Worcester's Dictionary,

BY

THOMAS G. APPLETON,

AUTHOR OF U A SHEAF OF PAPERS," "A NILE JOURNAL,"

"SYRIAN SUNSHINE."

BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.

1878.

L

I

< 'opyright,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS,

1877.

CAMBRIDGE:

OK JOHN WILSON AND *o\

To E. L.,

IN TOKEN OF OUR FRIENDSHIP OF
MANY YEARS.

CONTENTS.

PAGK

I. SOMETHING ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS . . 1

II. A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACK^ ... 34

III. A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY 82

IV. THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW . . . 113
V. THE LOOM OF THE EAST 129

VI. LAVATER ; OR, THE Two FACES . . . 145

VII. THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE . 200

VIII. WERE THE SLAVE STATES A PART OF THE

NATION ? 218

IX. AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE ...... 243

X. OUR CONTEMPORARIES 260

XI. A BROKEN HEART . ... 283

WINDFALLS.

i.

SOMETHING ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS.

/^\UR country is steadily progressing in civil-
ization : we mean here by civilization not
only refinement and culture, but a better use of
the materials about us.

We certainly do not allude to politics : that
flows like a river, sometimes a mirror for heaven's
blue, and at others dark with storms ; sometimes
it runs low and shows frightful monsters on its
banks, and all the while the life of the country
is steadily rising ; this life, which includes so
much, better manners, a friendlier intercourse,
more sensible views on religion, a better architect-
ure and a better household art ; galleries and
public libraries springing up everywhere ; and, by
the help of all these, a political sagacity daily
growing and training itself for the great work of
the future, for the hour seems to have struck when
the man is outgrowing the garments of the child,

Z WINDFALLS.

and must get himself measured for his suit of
manhood. He has wearied long enough of his
])iil)lic servants who traffic and dicker, and were
at times organizing themselves into rings of
legalized banditti.

The bright, the happy time of a new Saturnian
reign seems to have come. We shall soon see
if we are to be given to the spoiler, or whether
our genius, flexible and inventive, has not re-
sources of adaptation and reconstruction enough
to save us.

But we did not intend to speak of these
tilings or make dangerous predictions of emen-
dution, which the lessons of the sober past
teach us to think too sanguine. No, our inten-
tion simply is to refer to the nation's life out-
side of politics. That life, with all its glorious
increase of convenience and comfort, in one
direction nationally sins. In our enthusiasm of
living, we forget the sources of life: AVC trust
the brain with our feverish activity, too much
like a kite without a string, or rather with the
string cut across ; yet a healthy and well nour-
ished body gives the only firm foothold for the
gusty and liigh-llying mind.

In Europe, the body rather outbids the mind :
people do not particularly care to be restlessly

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 3

active, cleverer than their neighbors, or to make
work if they do not find it ; but they do care
for creature-comforts ; they believe seriously in
the dolce far niente and the body's enjoyment.
Every Parisian shopkeeper looks forward to the
time when, withdrawn from business, in his
little garden in the country or suburb, he shall
smoke his pipe with ample leisure under his
own vine and fig-tree. Here, we only retire
from business when the strength to continue it
retires from us : business is our life, and, in the
rush, we stumble over our grave before we have
time to pull up.

Such are some of the reasons why, here in
America, we have neither done justice to our own
needs or our surroundings in the matter of food.
Nature invites us to a table magnificently
spread, if the proper artist were there to intel-
ligently profit by its bounty. Heaven has sent
us its food, and the Puritan has sent us his
cook. How that honored ancestor must have
instinctively felt that a more cheerful larder, a
more skilful kitchen, would disagree with the

' */

ascetic and inhuman doctrines he believed in !
All over New England the doctrine taught by
the Puritans is fading away ; but, alas ! their
kitchen remains. Few of our well-fed citizens,

4 WINDFALLS.

who wisely and skilfully recognize the bounty
of nature, know of the deplorable condition of
the cooking in country towns, not so very far
from Boston. Within twenty miles, you touch
this dreadful atheism which spurns the gift of
the Creator. A selfish economy may begin
what habit and a chronic dyspepsia make a sec-
ond nature : but it is not that ; it is not that
money is wanting, but that the proper nourish-
ment of the body is not believed in. Even yet,
among these poor fellows lingers a certain
shame in the enjoyments of the table. Duty
may be believed in, though its inspiration
rather comes from a frown of Mrs. Grundy than
the true conscience. Business is really sacred ;
but what has the contemptible body more to do
than to take in its supply of brain stimulus
when needful. See them at their repast in a
country inn, moving from the despondent parlor,
whose air is aflame with carbonic acid gas, to
the bare and chilly dining-room, with nothing
to encourage a generous appetite or social cheer-
fulness. Mark their silence : even the com-
forts of the table do not raise their spirits.
Wine is too dear for a palate which can get out
of no wine-bottle the money cost of it. They
may stagger themselves, as with a blow, by a

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 5

shock from rum or whiskey ; but they take good
care that the blow shall be broken by no bread
or meat, and so leave their undefended interior
to fight out the battle for itself.

In this matter we have no reason to be hope-
less, because we are of English descent ; for we
have a fineness of organization, and a delicacy
of nerve, which make us as sensitive to animal
as to mental enjoyment. But, on the sanitary
side, we have much more need to be careful than
they. They have a climate where the dull sun
fails in its stimulus to the nervous centres, but
one in which muscular enjoyment the pleasure
of exercise is at its highest. We are nerve,
they are muscle ; we run to brain, and they run
to body : these conditions help them much.

Yet the English kitchen never rises beyond a
certain level : where good sense and substantial,
wholesome food stop, it draws a line. It never
ascends into the high aesthetic region of the
great chefs of the French school, of the art of
harmony, the matching and marrying flavors of
piquant discords. Of embroidery and ornamen-
tation, it knows little or nothing : it cannot even
make an omelet. No provincial French peasant
woman, in her little kitchen, but can toss you
up in a minute a light, fragrant omelet, such

6 WINDFALLS.

as deserves the name, dredged with sugar, and
branded here and there with a hot iron. Such
an omelet has often sent the traveller on his way
a happier man. And, in their cottages, they be-
lieve in milk for their coffee. In the good time
before chiccory, a table-spoonful of coffee would
suffice for a large cup ; but such milk is not
warm merely, but thoroughly boiled.

When England introduces artistic work into
her kitchen, she gets it from a French source.
In referring to national kitchens, I mean the
cooking of the bulk of the people. For the rich,
in every country, get something of the best, and
that best mostly imported. The English nobility
live well ; for, submitting their excellent mate-
rial to French skill, they have as good a dinner
as can be got. Fresher fish, a better flavored
mutton, and the national joint of beef, make the
French envious.

I once, in a stormy channel passage, found
below a couple violently disputing : the pair
consisted of a Frenchman, earnestly advocating
the better relish and wholesonieiiess of the Eng-
lish kitchen, while the Englishman, remember-
ing Paris, gave wholly the superiority to the
French cuisine. And they each had reason.
There is a wholesomeness in plain roast and

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 1

boiled, a stimulus to the gastric juice, and an
enjoyment, perhaps with a touch of the cannibal
in it, which the less simple, more complex cook-
ing of France does not know. Yet, wholesome
as it is, we demand a greater variety and a more
poetic treatment. Each school has its merits
and its faults. Vino ciboque plenum, the glutted
Englishman will take a nap before his sea-coal
fire, with his handkerchief over his eyes ; while
the lively Frenchman will get up ready for the
opera from a dozen courses, and scarcely feel
that he has dined. His palate was tickled:
the chemistry of dissolution was begun for him
by the skilful cook before nature undertook it.
The sleeping wolf within us, which tears and
gorges, dozed through his repast. His mind is
clear, his senses keen, for the delightful enter-
tainment of a French evening.

In most things the French do well, the ulti-
mate fact is their artistic taste. It is every-
where. It makes beautiful by arrangement the
shop window ; it gives to the cheap shawl and
simple dress of the grisette the grace a duchess
may miss. Lyons could not live an hour with-
out it ; and it easily makes the French school of
art the first in the world.

Their blood, running from ancestral veins, fur-

8 WINDFALLS.

nishes an atavism to explain this inherited grace
and sensibility to art. And how could it be
kept out of the kitchen in France when it is
everywhere else? An Englishman laughs when
he hears the word " artist" applied to the worker
in hair or to a cook ; but, poor man, the laugh
is rightly on the other side. The sadness, per-
haps, even beyond that of " followers not per-
mitted," in an English cook's life is, that her
dull inartistic brain knows not the joy of inven-
tion, the delight of a pursuit of the beautiful.
Was the soul of the greatest artist ever more
turned to lofty endeavor than when the broken-
hearted Carenie broached himself on his own
sword, dying thus professionally, for he had
made the spit as noble as the sword.

The main purpose of this paper is to deal with
the good things of America, whether wisely or
unwisely used, with a glimpse at our gastronomic
future. Nature has been to us no step-mother
She has dealt most generously by us ; and, un-
like every other nation, we swing from latitude
to latitude with a continental completeness in
earth, air, and water. And this vast area is
lut one nation. No douane, no octroi, shuts the
door from ocean to ocean. America stands with
her starry baldric glancing between her subject

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 9

seas, and her brows crowned with an encircling
garland where the pale growth of the North
mingles with a tropical glow of a southern
Flora ; while from her strenuous right hand,
which holds her horn of plenty, she showers the
fruits and produce of a quarter of the world.
And, with lightning speed, the railway distrib-
utes the good things of every State. Her clever
sons are at this very moment inventing meth-
ods for the preservation and distribution of her
produce beyond the seas.

Last night's " Punch ' ' shows us a cartoon of
an English butcher tossed by an animal he never
saw before. Up he goes from the horns of Bos
Americanus ; but it should properly have been
the English ox, fed with oil-cake and deterio-
rated by rinderpest, or, rather, John Bull him-
self, whom the newcomer should have been
shown to be hoisting thus. England, in her old
age, is getting pap-fed by all the young people.
In the Pampas, she hermetically boxes the cheap-
est beef of the world. For her, a thousand sheep
bleat on Australian hillsides. India fetches her
sauces and every spice, and nearer neighbors
her butter and her eggs. And now, her saucy
offspring invades with an ox of her own the

precincts of the sacred animal at home.
1*

10 WINDFALLS.

England sits, a little like some venerable Lear,
above her chalky cliffs, seeing his sons gather
samphire (" dreadful trade ") from any crevice ;
while his prosperous daughters sometimes un-
kindly mock their dependent parent. But, if
Regan and Goneril should be away in the hour
of trouble, may, like Cordelia, America be seen
sitting at his feet, and listening, while the old
man says,

" I think this lady to be my child."

Americans of delicate palates, when, after
travel, they near our shores, are apt to talk en-
thusiastically of the good things they expect to
find at home. They will compare with a friend
their preferences. One will say, " It is autumn,
and remember our canvas-backs."

To which the other may reply, " Won't I
be glad to get buckwheats and fried mush

again

" I will confide to you, my dear, that, as at
the latest, we must be home by the eighteenth,
for four successive days before that date, I have
ordered roast turkey, our roast turkey with its
necklace of sausages."

" Now, do you know," in return asks her
friend, " what I longed for the most in Europe ? "

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 11

u Yes, I do," was the answer : " it was for one
full glass of our delicious water."

" Ah, dear ! that indeed is water, what they
call so in Europe is only an infusion of lime.
And that is why, there, it is virtuous to drink
wine, thus escaping the evil of the lime, and
here virtuous to drink water, escaping the evil
of the inebriating cup."

" Oh, how often would I have gladly ex-
changed my bottle of champagne for a pitcher
of iced- water, and yet we don't need water there '
as we do here ! '

" In Europe our national ill-health is attributed
to bolting badly cooked food, which, poor as it
is, we insult by neglect, while the brain, unsub-
missive to its claims, is foraging for new thoughts
when it should be quietly helping digestion ;
but chiefly is it attributed to our too free use of
iced-water."

" A distinguished physician of New York, Dr.
Hossack, has said, that Americans have a cer-
tain latent feverishness, a fire within, which
drives them up and down, ever seeking the
excitement which shall fan it into flame ; and no
European can know how necessary, how delight-
ful, it is to try and quench this flame with our
ice-cold water."

12 WINDFALLS.

To which the other : " That is just it. Europe
is a kind of letting down to us : our American
harp of a thousand strings is keyed so high that
the strings must snap, if at times they are not
loosened in a less electric sky. It is good for us
to go there, and it is good for us to come back ;
but really now, do not you think our good
things better than theirs ? Why is it that, when
we come back, they taste so well ? '

" I suppose, because we belong to them, and
they belong to us. The same influences, solar
and terrestrial, which go to their making up are
acting also in us. Our protoplasm within hails
these good fellows without, and longs to make
their acquaintance ; and for the same reason
European good things do us good, because they
supply to us, as Europe does, what was missing.
In Europe we recover our ancestral selves, as at
home we recover afterwards our Indian or
American selves."

And thus we have a kind of stereoscopic or
double life, if we travel much. Somewhere
they overlap and make to the spectator a true
picture ; but usually there is confusion of outline,
an unachromatic look, which makes one not
quite a citizen of either country. Patriotism
thins itself into cosmopolitism, and one becomes

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 13

a citizen of every country, and of no country.
One gets to be the inhabitant of just the place
in which one does not find one's self. But let us
come back to home, with that relish of its good
things we have spoken of above, and look a
little steadily into our larder and the larder of
the future ; and yet, with the European side of
us, remember also her good things, and hint
slightly at a comparison it seems natural to
make between the two.

The modifications made upon animal life by
different climates are almost too subtle to be
followed ; but that there is such an influence is
proved, not only by our own feelings and health,
but by the geographer, the physician, and the
chemist. We must leave to these latter to tell us,
if they can, what chemical differences in compo-
sition of the body climates produce.

We know generally that men in the polar
regions have need of heat-producing food, for
life is combustion, and it requires a roaring fire
there to keep warm. And we know that near
the equator man can need no such food. There
the heat, tending to feverishness and difficulties
of the liver, demands the acid of fruits, the
mild nourishment of rice and other vegetables,
but little meat.

14 WINDFALLS.

But all the lesser degrees between 'these lati-
tudes and the finer modifications of dry ness
and dampness, sunshine or fog, and electrical
activity, - - of these, as yet, the physiologist tells
us little. But we observe that these influences
of climate act in each place to modify the
whole life there. Each living thing shares in it :
the elm of England differs from the elm of
America ; the maize of America differs from the
maize of Lombardy. And the character and
flavor of fish and meats is modified through the
same principle. This difference is so slight
that it is not much, spoken of; but it still exists.
We see the European emigrant change hour by
hour from his former self, and in the same way
do animals.

The merino sheep of Spain, the English horse,
the camel of the desert, soon show here that
they are not at home. In the West Indies
sheep lose their wool ; and it is proverbial that,
as we approach regions where carbon is less use-
ful in food, the flavor and nourishing qualities
of meats fall off.

We are very apt to accuse our southern friends
of an incapacity for good roast and boiled,
when the fault probably lies in the quality of
the material. But they have a cuisine of their

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 15

own ; and any one who has enjoyed the good
offices of one of those old-fashioned confidential
negresses who cooked here and there so well,
before the war, must admit that Africa as well
as France can supply a culinary artist.

What is this mystery of chemical adaptation
in food between man and his environment ?
There would seem to be no connection between
a living creature and his necessity of being gas-
tronomically suitable to us. A lobster thinks
he has an independent life, and little dreams
that the ultimate object of his existence is to
crown a salad. And the free-born children of
the air, the wild fowl and the plover, play-
mates of the billow and the beach, little think
that their tireless flights, their escapades and
flirtations with the wave-crest of the outer deep,
or its threaded silver as it dies along the shore,
are, as far as concerns man, only to fetch for
him a piquancy from wind and wave, and
change replenishment into poetry. And, in this
matter of adaptation, see how the scanty supply
of this exquisite food, and all luxuries which
bear the name of game, is managed. There
would not be enough to go round ; and, there-
fore, the Heavenly Caterer sees to it, that the
laboring man, the servant, the sailor, shall be
indifferent to its merits.

16 WINDFALLS.

Did it ever occur to you to think if it be ac-
cident or no, that so many things are palatable
and nourishing ? We eat them without think-
ing of the fine mixtures of fibrine, gluten, and
the flavors which run upon a scale of ascending
pleasure ; so like, yet so unlike, to each other ; so
artistic, that the mind enjoys them and finds for
its perception the same word as for its relish of
art, namely, taste. Should there not be a rever-
ential, even a religious, recognition of these har-
monies between the world He has made, and Man
the lord of it, which it would be more proper
to express than commonly we do ? Well might
the poor Esquimaux, if they knew enough, see
in the oil-bearing phoca, which keeps for them
alive the lamp of life, a divine and personal
beneficence. If they were to worship the creat-
ure, it would be better than to bow down to
stocks and stones. And, if we choose to see it,
there is a divinity even in the hog. To a
thoughtful man, this insulted but useful creat-
ure, seems to say, " I am an after-thought."
When the great Provider had fashioned and
sent forth his creatures,- -those that fly and
swim and ruminate,- -mindful of man's future
need, lie gave these the flesh which his fire
could make palatable ; and also gave to man a

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 17

delight in his use of a function without which
life would be impossible, and finding for him
such an enjoyment that he would never be .
tempted to neglect self-preservation. And as
the Infinite Power contemplated the world of
happy beings he had made, and those whose
fate was to be serviceable to man, with no
foreknowledge of their doom to embitter their
little lives, we may, without irreverence, im-
agine him to have thought, "All is good, yet
one thing I lack : something not perishable like
these, the use and pleasure of a moment,
but a heat-giving food, compact and with prop-
erties for long preservation by salt and smoke ;
something that the trapper, the sailor, the way-
farer can carry with them, and find much suste-
nance in little space."

And so this exceptional animal, so spurned,
yet so prized, by him for whom he was made,
came into existence. See his great generous
body, the half of it hanging there in the mar-
ket! Observe on what a slender line of mem-
brane all this useful, this unique beneficence is
suspended ! There is no waste of the precious
fatness, only enough bone, only enough muscle,
is there to keep together that treasure, which,
whether salted and called pork, or smoked and

18 WINDFALLS.

called bacon, the working-man could not do with-
out. If you doubt this, become a working-man
yourself, or even that fashionable imitation of
it, the hunter of the Adirondacks from the city.
You will then find that the ripest game, the
juiciest steak, cannot carry to the inner man
that intimate conviction of merit that does this
humble dish.

With what pencil shall we paint the shades of
difference in flavor between the good things of
America and those of Europe? They almost
defy expression. They escape the defmiteness
of speech, and the mind's memory volatilizes
almost as quickly as does the aroma of a dish
fade in air. Generally, we may say that, in
quality as meat, our beef holds its own, at the
least, with that of England. But she surpasses
us in mutton : her mutton flavor is truer,
stronger, and richer. Her Southdown mutton,
where the animal feeds upon the short saline
grass of Beachyhead, and the neighboring
downs, whose precipitous sides slant to the sea,
surpasses any thing we have. So too does the
Welsh mutton, small, gamy, and full of flavor.
Nor is the Highland mutton of Scotland much
behind. The French have little good mutton,
save from the pre sale sheep, so named from

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 19

the good quality it gains, as does the South-
down, from being near the sea. Whether
this comes from the sea air, or the grass there,
I cannot say ; but it is probably owing to that
double oxygen, which is called ozone, which
stimulates both grass and animal. I do not
remember that the mutton of our sea-line is
recognized as having the superiority given to it
in Europe.

But our great excellence is in poultry : not
merely did we give the turkey to Europe, but
only here is it to be found really good. They
do not care much for it in England ; and in
France it is only saved from neglect by the aro-
matic truffle, which makes it indeed a princely
dish.

The French have good fowls and that breed,
so large, so fat, from which the falsetto delicacy
of the capon is made, which breed I remember
hearing Mr. John Quincy Adams say he was
the first to introduce here. This species we
must place at the head of these volatile favorites ;
but the common chicken is it anywhere so
good as in America?

Foreigners I have often heard admit it ; and
yet, who of us now sees full justice done to the
turkey, really the national bird of America, and

20 WINDFALLS.

one to be prouder of than that rapacious sea-
eagle whom Audubon so discouragingly de-
scribes. Since the wood-fire has ceased to roast,
we hear with watering mouths of the departed
grandeur of the Essex kitchen. There, on holi-
day occasions, the old-fashioned cook, who had
never heard of Paris, would, under the approv-
ing eyes of her mistress, baste the broad breast
of some monumental turkey, and release it after-
wards from its revolving spit, with such a crisp
froth of surface as coal-fire can never furnish.
The same is recognized in Paris, where all cook-
ing now is done by coal. There they talk of
the good old days of the Rocher de Cancale, and

Ve'ry's.

And we alone have the wild turkey. A Cana-
dian friend once sent me one killed a hundred
miles beyond Toronto, so huge that the uplift-
ing hand holding it could hardly keep it off the
floor, and from whose hospitable breast dinners
were carved and eaten ; its dome-like plumpness
half concealing from the host the enjoyment of
his guests.

And let us admit that they have cranberries
in Europe ; but, if you wish to know their merit,
ask for cranberries in a country inn of our own.
Europe dreams not of such a piquant companion

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 21

to the turkey as a good dish of cranberries :
each one a glittering beryl, streaming with a
juice as beautiful to the eye as the wild acidity,
which sugar has tamed, is delicious to the palate.
Before we dismiss this national bird, let us pay
our homage to that witty French lawyer who
first brought the kitchen into literature,
Brillat de Savarin. He not only gave us the
reason of our enjoyment, but he garlanded the
casserole with the flowers of wit and sentiment.
But he had one supremely anxious moment in

Hhis life, when in America. While boarding with
a farmer, with two lovely daughters, near Hart-
ford, Connecticut, which, being a Frenchman,
of course he took care to misspell, he had the
good fortune to kill a wild turkey. He soon
became silent, absorbed, and unhappy. He
confessed to a grave ' responsibility, how ad-
equately to serve up a morceau of such impor-
tance, and he had reason, for at that day prob-
ably, no Connecticut farmer's wife would be
careful enough of her roast, to give a French-
man confidence.

It is in the game course that we are strong
also. Not only does the canvas-back, with a
bit of celery in its bill, swim a crowned queen
of its watery world ; but having a longer coast-

22 WINDFALLS.

line than other countries, running through more
differences of heat and cold, we have a greater
variety of shore birds. To know how many and
how good they are, you must dine at Taft's in
September : he says that on a particular occa-
sion he once gave a dinner with birds from every
State in the Union. His greatest effort that I
have witnessed was the supper he gave to the
New York Yacht Club, by invitation of the East-
ern Yacht Club. Of course a supper of so many
plates could not be like that of a small party : it
was a tour de force, a case of a pen pres. The
quality of a plover or a snipe cannot be trifled
with ; it is perfect or it is nothing : and our New
York guests confessed that Mr. Taft won laurels
where others would have only reaped disgrace.
" Alas ! ' said they, " we can never have such a
hotel for game as his near New York. In the
season it will be vulgarized by gamblers, and
brutalized by roughs."

The reason of Mr. Taft's success is, that he
believes in game ; he is a sportsman as well as a
caterer and a cook : he presides at the cooking,
and this is always done by a wood fire. He
observes his patients, watch in hand, till they
are cults d point. He is an authority at Shirley
which none disputes. He once laid down the

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 23

law to Agassiz de haut en bas, and said, " You
will find the golden plover the best bird we
have ; " and, with the bird in his mouth, Agassiz
could make no denial. But the genius of
Mr. Taft stops with his meats and fish. His
accessories are of a cheap New England sort :
his bread is poor, his pickles virulent, and his
butter, " oh ! breathe not its name " in
Philadelphia. Let a grateful city urge him to
reach perfection where it is so easy. To con-
clude with a compliment, Europe has no such
sea-side hotel, with its affluence of game from
so long a line of shore, and all intelligent for-
eigners who have dined there confess as much.

To come back to the larder. Fish are said to
furnish phosphorus to the brain. Mr. Agassiz
told me that the great chemist, Gay-Lussac,
from experiments, was satisfied of the fact, and
I believe other experiments corroborate this
belief. Doubters immediately say : " Are then
fishermen, who chiefly subsist on fish, so supe-
rior in brains to other people ? ' If they are
not, the answer may be, that perhaps they eat
too much fish ; or do not eat enough of other
food to keep the balance right.

One notices that some persons eat fish every
day ; others are indifferent to it ; and some

24 WINDFALLS.

never eat it at all. May not this be owing to
the greater or less demand for phosphorus to
supply the brain? At all events, fish constitutes
a part of our subject-matter.

There is no better fish-market than ours.
Though we may miss the lordly and firm turbo t,
the familiar and pleasant sole, the flaky and per-
fumed mullet, we have all that is necessary
abundantly. Our mackerel are the best that I
have met with. The halibut is almost wholly
our own, for it is rarely found with the foreign
fish-monger. We have not the fresh-water eel,
which is so much prized, and so large, in France.

Our salmon, abundant only in the northern
states, seems quite equal to the best Scotch
salmon ; though it is by no means so common a
fish here as in Great Britain. We are even
supplied with it from California ; but, if we may
judge of it in its condition from the ice-box,
that is not so highly flavored as our own. The
rivers of Nova Scotia and Canada furnish it to
us abundantly. The waters there are strictly
preserved, and our Izaak Waltons profit by this ;
and for a round sum enjoy, in our summer
months, the sport of catching this royal fish.

If the salmon be the king of the piscatory
tribe, the trout the sea-trout especially is a

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 25

prince near the throne. It is to be remarked
that salt seems as necessary to make good flesh
for the fish, as for man and other animals. The
difference between the flavor of sea and fresh-
water trout, and the salmon just from the
ocean, and after a long stay in a river, is so
great as to be distinguished at once. A sea-
trout from the Cape, and fresh caught, perfumes
the room in which it is eaten.

But our chief fish, from which our sickle-like
Cape got its name, is excellent. And when its
head and shoulders are eaten with oyster sauce,
by many it is preferred to any other fish. Its
flesh, is perhaps, not so firm as that of the
English cod, and this leads me to make a gen-
eral remark ; I think there is something which
tends to make flesh of all creatures here more
delicate and softer than is the case in Europe.
My own experience tells me so ; though I have
never heard it mentioned by another. Not only
is the quality of all flesh that is eaten of finer
grain ; but I think the law also applies to the
human race. I think the flesh of men and
women here has a tendency to be more delicate
and finer than that of European races. This
has something to do with the refined beauty of

our women ; as also has another circumstance.
2

26 WINDFALLS.

The bony structure of animals here seems slen-
derer, slighter, than that of the same creatures,
man included, in Europe. Our hands and feet
are smaller ; our jaws narrower ; the nose gen-
erally more delicate in its outline than is the
case there. Our horses, cattle, and sheep seem
smaller than they are abroad. It may be that
the quickened electric life, receiving its stimulus
from the sun, spends itself at the expense of the
body's bulk.

We may be told, " There is the mammoth : do
you call that a diminished creature ? ' Europe
also has the mammoth, and I suppose it is quite
as large as ours. But this fineness of the meat
that is eaten here, Americans think, plays a
great part in the excellence of their game-birds,
while flavor is not wanting. Fish, flesh, and
fowl, all have something to say to the same
effect ; and indeed the rule apparently extends
through all living things. Our trees have not
the bulk and fulness of foliage of English trees :

o o

and the flower-shows of London exhibit our
rhododendrons, kalmias, and azaleas, larger and
richer colored than we see them here. This fact,
if true, is so interesting, that I think it will be
worth while for our physiologists and students
of natural history to ascertain its accuracy.

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 27

Before we dismiss the subject of fish, I would
take leave of it by reference to two species both
so welcome at the table, the smelt and the
Spanish mackerel. Though the smelt is known
in Europe, it is nothing like so good as here.
It is comparatively insipid. It seems to need
our electric cold, the snap of our clear winter
weather, to make it the delicacy we so love.
The Spanish mackerel, of late only a visitor to our
Northern shores, for in the Vineyard, Sound,
and near Newport, it is quite abundant, is
the trout of the sea. It has the same beauty of
form, the same spots upon its skin, and its ex-
quisite and fine flesh hint also that it is of
royal lineage. The extension of its area lately
calls to mind, that Agassiz told us that the range
of space occupied by fishes is not so large as
we might think, even where there is no barrier
to prevent their moving farther if they please.
This range, we suppose, is determined by their
feeding ground : if that moves, they move with
it. Probably that is the case with the Spanish
mackerel, and certain other fish which have
become emigrants ; and we alone have a shad
worthy of the name. I shall not stop to say
more of fishes. I will not be seduced by the
odor of the frittura. Our abundant and excel-

28 WINDFALLS.

lent pan-fish, the perch, and the flounder shall not
detain me ; neither shall the unforgotten tenants
of our lakes, the gigantic trout of the lakes of
Maine ; or the capital white fish of our great
chain of inland waters.

For the larder of the future, I would like to
make a suggestion. In these Saturnian days,
our new departure for another era of good feel-
ing, when, let us hope, the scars of war are
healing, the bounty of our land should be better
understood and developed. There are commis-
sions and bureaus to manage by division the
great national domain. Why should there not
be one for food and produce ?

Each State now is furnished with its geologist
to give an account of its mineral treasures, and
could we not have one of food which should
give its account also, not only of the produce of
its fields, the number and quality of its cattle,
its better or worse adaptation for the growth of
the farm and the garden, but supplement it all
by a search for hidden treasures of the table,
either undiscovered or unappropriated until
now?

It should ascertain the effect of the climate
and soil on imported cattle, the greater or less
success of agriculture, horticulture, pisciculture,

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 29

in each locality, and the probable chance for the
introduction and discovery of new forms of food
for man.

America must hide away many treasures be-
sides gold and silver. The crude table of the
countryman, the western or southern farmer, has
had neither desire nor use for such luxuries, if
found, until now. Nor if they had, was the
government furnished with the means of ac-
complishing any addition to our scanty supply
of creatures, vegetables, sauces, or relishes,
which is a substantial increase of human happi-
ness.

A Frenchman has said of America playfully,
" It has a hundred religions, and but a single
sauce." There is enough truth in it to make us
desire to have these furnishings for this world
and the next, balance more equally.

A few years ago, mushrooms were not in our
market, neither were Brussels-sprouts, artichokes,
scallops, the oyster of the cape, nor even the
tomato ; till Agassiz noticed it, the American
turbot was unknown. It is fortunate for this
fish that it has his authority for calling itself a
turbot, for it is widely different in size and
flavor from its English namesake ; but it is a
good fish, however called.

30 WINDFALLS.

France considers her perfumed truffle a jewel
among condiments. Capons and turkeys stuffed
with it become royal dishes. But the true
gourmet best loves it in its simplicity, boiled
like a potato, and served whole in a snowy nap-
kin, and eaten with bread and butter : this gives
it its full importance. But it is only good when
fresh : served in restaurants, it is apt to be the
leavings of days before, and then it is tasteless,
resembling black cork. The best truffles in the
world come from Perigord in France, not far
from the Mediterranean, near Marseilles. It is
about the size, generally, of a middling potato,
jet black with a rough surface. Dogs are trained
to find it in the forests of Perigord. There has
been a great increase of late years in the pro-
duction of this dainty, just as the world might
have feared a falling off. The history of this
increase is curious. The birth of this tuber, the
truffle, was a mystery. It was simply known
to be unearthed by dogs, hogs, or accidentally
by men. The seed of it could not be procured
for propagation, and all attempts to grow it
failed ; but a certain peasant was noticed grow-
ing rich by the sale of truffles. He was so
watched and surrounded that he consented at
last to tell his secret. His neighbors profited

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 31

by this, and became rich in their turn. His
secret was this. After watching long the be-
havior of truffles, he discovered that they chiefly
were found under one species of tree, I forget
which ; so he planted this tree, and the truffles
followed.

The French government has deigned to notice
this industry, and encourage it. How many
times the production of this delicious comestible
has multiplied from the old supply, it is difficult
to say, the increase is so rapid. It pa} r s so well
that it supersedes, where it succeeds, every thing
else. Thus France doubly gains, by the increased
supply of a favorite dainty and also much useful
timber.

Germany has a truffle, so has Italy. Hers is
of a light brown color, and, though good, much
inferior to the truffle of Perigord.

America, one would think, must possess this
treasure ; with so many climates, such forests
everywhere, this black diamond must be some-
where hidden. Would it not be well for our
Food Bureau to ascertain the facts of its cul-
ture, import men and dogs to hunt for it, and,
if necessary, plant the French tree, which is the
fidus Achates of this mysterious stranger?

Delicious wild mushrooms we have, and of

32 WINDFALLS.

late the cultivated, but is that all we are ever
to know of the fairy-like race of fungi ! Italy
possesses a dozen or two varieties, all eatable,
and we do have or could have quite as many.

The word " toadstool " scares people from at-
tempting a discovery. But an expert could
soon settle the matter.

It is a great advantage for supply, that we
are a continent, yet one country ; and our enter-
prise fetches from the four quarters, as its sea-
son commences, many a good thing. We know
when the spring is coming along in Florida by
the shad and early pea we see on our table.
We know when the ice has disappeared in Can-
ada, for the salmon comes to tell us. Bermuda
writes her latitude upon the early potato. Even
California makes a long arm, and drops into our
hand her peaches and her pears. Kentucky
thinks nothing of hanging her fresh mutton in
Faneuil Hall market, and no change from ice or
muffling snow can prevent the grouse of the
prairies, the venison or wild turkey of western
forests, from reaching us uninjured.

Europe knows nothing of this. Her little na-
tions jostling and keeping each other off with
octroi and douane, forbid such interchange of
markets.

ABOUT OUR GOOD THINGS. 33

America has great advantages, and it is our
duty not to neglect them : it is, above all, our duty
to try and reach the national kitchen and teach
it improvement. We must take time to under-
stand arid believe in this chemistry by fire, for
it will give a better chance to the coming man.
We must take time to eat, and time to digest
our food, and then we shall know something of
the ample and generous larder with which a
beneficent Father has favored us.

2*

34 WINDFALLS.

II.

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS.

" TTAVE you ever been in the Adirondacks? '
" No ? Then your life is a mistake."
"We none of us knew what we had been missing
until we got there. In a certain sense, and an
important one, we then discover what is the
America we live in. We had known our At-
lantic Ocean as overlooked from headland and
bay on its sinuous shore. We had known NCAV
England's rural village, its street, checkered
with elm shadows, and those meadow, or hill-
side walks, so important a part of what we call
"living in the country."

But the Adirondacks are quite another affair.
There you do not visit Nature, you are envel-
oped by her. You lie on her breast, and her
arms are around you. She mixes your blood with
the balsam of her caresses. All that she loves
her happy solitude, the floor of glassy lakes, her
woodland song and odors, she gives to you. By
the seashore, which is ever whispering, " Come
back to Mother England : you are her child,"

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 35

we have a divided affection, but in the Adi-
rondacks, we are wholly American. No trick
of the old civilization is here. No imported
habit, no daily custom, borrowed from a sun-
less land, here exists. It is America to the
core. It takes up your half-European nerves
and makes a home for them, where every sight
and sound repels the alien mixture.

No forest of Arden but the one which Shak-
speare visited, can match these poetic solitudes.
Jaques is sure to be there, and Audrey, and
Touchstone, " though with a difference : ' here,
they are called hunters and trappers, and their
mother wit could give long odds to any past-
ure-fed wags of the low countries. They are
on their native heath, and their name is Mac-
Gregor. But for the king and his court, I fear
the best we can get, will be merchant princes,
those kings of Cocaigne. And I fear all our
courts can do for us is to furnish not courtiers,
but lawyers. Alas ! I suspect the penknife of
America has scored upon tree-trunks other verses
and another name than those of Orlando.

England rubs the rust off her members of
Parliament and her city men in Scottish high-
lands. And our jaded merchants, or the bar-
nacles of our city clubs, do the same in our

36 WINDFALLS.

highlands, the Adironacks. They tell me that
the city so empties itself now into the forest,
that

" The trail of the cockney is over it all."

Some fifteen years ago, when I was there, it was
still a virgin region. Its great simplicity easily
swallowed any intruder, and he was lost in it.
I have lived for nearly a fortnight there by a
lake, with only one habitation within ten miles.
It is this privacy of the woods, all our own,
which is their greatest charm.

We should have been jealous of any rival.
Those long leagues of waters, those crimsoning
mountains, that hyacinthine arch of sky, were
all ours, with none to dispute our possession.
If we analyze the many sources of our satisfac-
tion there, we shall find that this undisturbed
and imaginary ownership of all counted for a
great deal.

We could well spare any display, or the lux-
ury of home comforts, having such a royalty.
In the city, beautiful furniture and spacious
rooms we might have ; but what a pitiful king-
dom in extent it was, some thirty by ninety
feet ! Here the boundary of our estate was the
circling wall of the horizon only !

Once when I visited with a party, we had the

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 37

great good luck to go there in October. It was
the time of our own Indian summer. Where
can it be so felt and enjoyed as in the Indian's
country, for whom it was made ? That is the
time when all things in America are at their
best. The mosquito and the sand-fly have dis-
appeared. No smoky cloud of smudge pollutes
the breathless air. Like eagles, the winds have
flown to some high nest, and a celestial calm
takes their place. It is the time of the hunter.
The poor deer no longer sinks, when shot, in the
lake, but floats buoyant in his long hair.

The travelling ducks dip downward to try
these wells of the wilderness, and there slake
their thirst for water. And the heat, sufficient
at mid-day to warm us as if we were a pear on a
garden wall, is mild enough to leave morning
all its freshness, and give to the cooling even-
ings the comfort and glory of whole tree-trunks
of flame, whose dying embers warm for us the
night through and through. At such a season,

o o o

the guide can tell his tale of adventure beside
our forest fire-place, and sleep comes to us after-
wards close and deep, as the feverish summer is
gone.

Our preparations for camp life were ample.
One of the party had been there before, knew

38 WINDFALLS.

what it was necessary to leave as well as what
to take, and, besides, he had a passion for prepa-
rations and packing. A genius of this sort is
invaluable where compactness is every thing.
We had a serviceable tent, which was lent us for
the ladies ; but the men were expected to sleep
as they could. Through the skill of our guide,
we either improvised a sufficient shelter, or like
cuckoos took possession of the nests of others ;
for the wilderness keeps open house.

We had the metal plates and all needful
things for meals, breakfast and dinner service,
but not a bit of crockery !

Of course, as food, we brought only the plain-
est things, flour, salt, and butter, pepper,
but no relishes, beyond a jar or two of English
pickles. In one important particular, we were
exceptionally fortunate : the piece de resistance
in the forest is pork. I am tempted here to a
disquisition on the hog ; but, as I have relieved
myself of it elsewhere, I will spare the reader.
But I must notice this, as the appetite changes
with its habitat, its need and relish of food
changes. This permanent picnic, this life in the
open air, craves something which pork supplies,
and which no dainty in the world could.

We took no dainties, or if we did, did not dis-

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS.

turb them. Our sherry we left untasted in its
bottles, but honest whiskey we never despised.

The forest provides its own larder. There
was always a buck hanging by the heels near
the camp, and trout were rarely wanting. We
imitated the bad practice of the Irish, who after
ruining their own at home, are now ruining our
fishing, hanging great lines in the sea with a
thousand cruel, baited hooks depending. This
not only catches and kills the too young fish,
but it scares away the larger ones. Though a
law passed in time could have stopped this, our
fishermen, who used only the hook and line, were
like all Americans too amiable to protest beyond
grumbling a little. But I suppose we must sub-
mit to our new Ireland on the water, as we are
losing our new England on the land.

So the guides swung their death-hooks to set
lines, and our breakfast was the better for it.
Rods we took, guns of course, and a heavy bal-
last of shot and bullets. But our bother was
bait : there is every thing else in the woods but
worms, as we either are or furnish them food
by civilization ; without these, they cannot exist.

Our circular tin-box, a foot long and half as
wide, whose top was pierced with little holes to
admit air and water, was cared for as a very

40 WINDFALLS.

precious thing. As to dress, we already knew
that for wild life a woollen overshirt is the only
wear : with bars of color, it may even be beauti-
ful ; but its pride is in making a cockney look
like a trapper. With the sure taste American
ladies have for the harmonies of things, ours
reflected the crimson woods in their petticoats,
and carried off that color in their hats crowned
with scarlet berries. What relates to the kitchen,
what relates to the chase, excepting guns, the
guides provide. The frying pan and the grid-
iron have more to do there than the spit. Eggs
keep now as they never used to do. My driver
to Moosehead Lake was an egg-merchant: he
kept his method of preserving them a secret;
but to show its worth he told me that, after buy-
ing up a lot from neighboring farms, he sent
them to Boston to sell. There was no demand
for them, so he exported them to California.
They met there with the same indifference ; so,
being reshipped to Boston the next spring, they
sold very well. Ours had this advantage of the
lime-water treatment ; and, in spite of what peo-
ple may think, condensed milk is richer in coffee
than cow's milk.

Our party had shown pluck in sticking to the
appointed day of departure. After a dry sum-

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 41

mer, it began to rain ; nor was there any let up
for a fortnight, and into that time the whole wet
of the season was packed. We were true to our
mutual promise, and were rewarded for it ; for,
after the storm passed away, faultless autumnal
weather set in. But for ladies to start on such
a trip in a driving storm astonished some of
their friends. " You will never arrive ; all your
things will be wet ; the mud will prevent your
moving about ; and when you are there you will
only get pork to eat," vainly croaked these birds
of ill omen : our wills and faces were set to go,
and every thing turned out for the best. The
rail slid us through in a day to Lake Champlain ;
and, ere night, by steamer and coach we were at
Keesville. The storm there was strong enough
to get through the ceiling of one of our bed-
rooms, and sprinkle which then seems a deluge
the sleeper. Nothing daunted, the next day
we set off for the lower Saranac in one of those
generous country wagons, and such a spanking
team as puts gayety into the heart of the excur-
sionist.

Though the storm lasted for many days, it did
not rain always. The curtain would lift, and
chase as with silver the gleaming frets of the
swollen Ausable. Tahaus, for a moment, would

42 WINDFALLS.

throw off his hood and look down on us. For
a moment, we glanced up the long aisles of the
dripping woods ; getting a peep of a clearing
beyond, with its stumps looking almost like
wheat stacks, and the settler's house, with its
smoke blue against the pines.

Our horses didn't seem to mind the mud;
nor did we. It was very juicy, but very jolly.
Before we got to Martin's, there was plenty of
thunder and lightning. Evening had come, the
storm closed in, and so it was doubly dark.
Our guide-post was the lightning. When it
flashed, we profited by it to see our road ; and
scampered along till the next flash showed us
we were not yet quite among the stumps. In
an instant, the glare etched against the darkness
every particular of the whole landscape. A
straggling fence, a hundred trees, films of moun-
tain, and the puddles beside the road, were, so
to say, burnt into the brain in a second. If a
cart, going at a round pace, passed before the eye,
it seemed to stand still; we could see all the
spokes : the reason is, the lightning was swifter
than the cart ; and its impression, like an instan-
taneous photograph, catches things on the jump.
The photograph of men running shows us their
legs thrown higher than we ever see them.

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 43

Mark Twain remarked to me, that lightning
throws no shadows : the reason I suppose is that
it devours while creating them.

At length, with a rush we came dashing under
Martin's covered doorway and stopped. In-
stantly, one of our horses reeled and fell dead.
Poor fellow ! He did not fail us, till perhaps he
felt that his service was no longer wanted. We
shook ourselves out of our wet clothes, and
dined cheerfully. Apparently, there were no
people in the house but clergymen. I have
often noticed the same thing in Switzerland.
At Lucerne's table d'hote, you may see opposite
you an Alpine line of white chokers, and you
almost fancy you hear them say to the waiters,
" Dearly beloved." These play-grounds of Eu-
rope and America authorize a harmless dissi-
pation, where the world permits them so few.
They escape out of their parish routine into the
freedom of Nature. These mountain play-
grounds, this summer vacation, is as the year's
Sabbath. Overworked and fatigued, they get
then rest, refreshment, and a store of good
thinking for the future. Civilization, which
lives by consuming men's lives, is made possible
through such reservoirs of recuperation as Swit-
zerland and the Adirondacks. Yearly we shall

44 WINDFALLS.

profit by them more, for we shall need them
more.

Every moment hoping to see the rain stop,
after a row on the lower Saranac, to get a taste
of what we came for, we were off for Bartlett's.
This burly inn-keeper resides in a comfortable
house near the upper Saranac, and is a power
in the forest. He has his henchmen who do his
bidding. He desired to sweep us into his net,
to assume the management of our party. After
the storm had continued two days more, and he
thought the weather had softened the ladies'
hearts, as it had the ground, he put his foot
down and tried to make an impression.

" The men '11 do it well enough, I guess ; but
t'aint no use talkin' to you delicate critters
'bout goin' up to Long Lake. Yer ain't used to
it. And if yer get out there you'd only sog
round a bit, make believe yer like it, and then,
if you can find a dry place, you '11 sit down and
cry. Why, the mud '11 be up to your waist. I
tell you, yer ca-a-arit do it. Now you just stay
here and be comfortable, and when it clears up
I '11 row you round Tuppur's Lake. You '11
like it fust rate."

He got no reply ; but a whisper like " pig '
floated through the air.

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 45

Those plucky ladies ! " They bated not one
jot of heart or hope," but bravely adhered to
our plan. Such firmness and courage deserved
the reward which they soon got. After a day or
two, a manly figure, a face resolute but sweet,
suddenly showed themselves. With that ap-
pearance was bound up the success of our enter-
prise. When he came, we felt the sun could not
be far behind. And instantly, as if per contract,
the great luminary shouldered the clouds aside,
and stood laughing down at us. Even Bartle.tt
was melted. " Just you stay one day more, and
we '11 have a grand hunt with all the dogs." " I
mean to," quietly replied the new-comer, whom
we had caressed and welcomed in a way that made
Bartlett understand our mutual relations. Our
deliverer, and hero of the woods, was protector
and friend to us for a month of such thorough
enjoyment that his name shines with lustre in
our memory. It was Robert Fulton, guide of
Long Lake, and he was no dishonor to his greater
namesake. Knowing all that the woods teach,
practised in invention and contrivance, kind,
steady, wise, and brave, we soon believed in him
with the same reliance through these woodland
leas, that dependent passengers acquire for some
captains of our ocean steamers. Bartlett's prop-

46 WINDFALLS.

osition to give us a day's hunting was so sec-
onded by the lovely weather, and our delight to
escape into the air, that it was a brilliant success.
The woods had been undisturbed for at least a
fortnight, and the deer came out like ourselves
to enjoy the fine weather. Bartlett posted us at
different points; appointing for each a hunter,
and distributing his pack of hounds. I was
placed where two tongues of land nearly united,
with shallow water between. Then, for the first
time, I heard that music of the hounds which
Shakespeare must have enjoyed in Warwickshire
when a boy, as looking over the hedge he saw
the hunt sweep by. His lines in Midsummer
Night's Dream betray the memory of the ear
as well as imagination. Then could I as he
did :

" Mark the musical confusion
Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

*

. . . Never did I hear

Such gallant chiding ; for, besides the groves,
The skies, the fountains, every region near
Seemed all one mutual cry : I never heard
So musical a discord, such sweet thunder."

And there was meaning in the music. At
first the dogs ran up the mountain, and their
track was marked by a perspective of sound.

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 47

Then finding the deer, there was exultation in
their cry ; and I knew it was making for the lake
by the increasing swell and loudness of the
barking. Having heard of the " buck fever," I
quietly waited for it to show itself. While
standing still, with the shame of an expectant
murderer, the wood in front seemed to open.
A vision of grace and beauty came dancing
along with glancing horns and a derisive smile.
That contemptuous smile was fatal to the buck ;
for, as he swept by, I put a bullet through his
head, and he fell in his tracks.

After sketching him, while busy with another
drawing, Bartlett came up. Seeing us so tran-
quil, he said eagerly : " Where is the deer ?
Didn't you hear a gun? H 'aint the dogs bin
by ? I suppose then t'was t'other feller's gun I
heerd."

Turning to my companion, I said : " Certainly
we heard the dogs, and I think the gun too,
didn't we ? Mr. Bartlett, will you be good
enough to hand me my pencil-case. You will
find it just beyond that bush." When there, he
started back, exclaiming : " Good gracious, what
a buck ! ' Not appreciating the diffidence I
thought I showed after my success, when talk-
ing it over Bartlett remarked : " There was a

48 WINDFALLS.

chap here from Boston who killed a deer, and
I tell yer, he felt as big as a four-acre lot."
Later in the day, Bartlett killed a buck him-
self, and he showed what he thought the right
way to express his triumph. He bragged out-
rageously, and so embroidered the truth that
we almost thought he had not killed any thing.
Each of us men killed a buck that day, and it
was best so, for such satiety of luck put us at
peace with ourselves. And afterwards we took
things coolly.

The next day, with our six guides, each one
rowing a boat, the last one looking after a
larger boat which held our traps, we took a
cordial leave of our landlord (for the previous
day's success had smoothed all irritation between
us), and made directly for Long Lake. We
struck the shore not far from the place where
one day we had vaiixly fished in the rain. And
leaving the upper Saranac, we crossed to the
Racquette by Indian Carry. I remember the
Indian, for there was a famous story told us of
an Indian chief, the mound of whose grave we
saw about midway ; but I seem to think the
Carry was only our old acquaintance, a horse
and cart. But whether or no it be so, we had
the real thin^ afterwards. I remember a terri-

o

A MONTH IN THE ADIEONDACKS. 49

ble carry, up hill and down dale, over which
it was my fate to have a sack of potatoes,
swinging from the shoulder. As the ground
was more or less oozy, this sack would jerk to
right and left, as if some one were pulling me
back. After that experience, I never doubted
any stories I had heard of carries.

When we had passed the ferry, Fulton dis-
played his flotilla ; consisting of six boats, such
as are in general use in the Adirondacks. They
are light yet strongly built boats, some twenty
feet long, and the pleasantest way of using
them is to lie half reclining at full length, with
wraps under you over which are placed elastic
boughs curving upward of the fragrant balsam
fir. You thus carry the woods with you as you
go. And there is health as well as fragrance in
their pressure. The attitude, the drowsy click
of rowlocks, the whispering swirl of the reced-
ing water, are all favorable to indolence and
dreaming.

Life clothes itself in poetic bliss. The body
is no burden. Its muscles sleep. Thought and
will are at rest, while, before tranquil but not
unobservant eyes, Nature unrolls for us the
panorama of the wilderness.

Yet this gliding tranquillity does not equal
3 D

50 WINDFALLS.

what I remember at Moose River in Maine.
There, in the evening, looking out for moose,
we floated over the crimson lustre, as our
soundless birch canoe glided like some silent
cloud across that mimic sky.

We hung secure, and shot past the uprooted
tree, the bellowing bull-frog, as does a bird on
balanced wings.

But, in the Adirondacks, a stronger boat is
needed. Intersected as the woods are there
with rivers on which, like pearls, great lakes
are strung, a country which reminds one of
the Brazil which Mrs. Agassiz describes with
arapes (water-roads) everywhere, these boats
are the cabs of the wilderness.

The sense of progress without effort, a beauty
which stoops to you and is not hunted for,
flatters our pride and complacency. And the
vagueness of the forest, where rises no shattered
tower, where no historic sight awakes the slum-
bering mind, well matches the vagueness of our
dreamy pensiveness. At evening we arrive un-
jaded, and the fatigue of a walk only refreshes
us. Our minds are so lost in dream that on one
occasion a lady of our party lifting her lashes,
as at evening the day's journey ended, and the
boat without a jar touched the shore, beheld a
familiar figure looking towards her.

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 51

" All," she thought, " then I am not in the
happy Adirondacks, but still moving along
Broadway ! This city acquaintance makes it
but too evident."

Our first camp was full of interest to us. The
river on which we had been, had for its name
a suggestive French one, reminding us of French
Jesuits, and the lonely rivers which run through
the picturesque pages of Mr. Parkman, the his-
torian. It was called the Racquette. Upon its
bank, our guides began to cut long saplings for
the four posts of the ladies' tent. The larger
and longer ones in front, to which soon was
attached a sloping roof of canvas, and three
sides only. But the axe never tired of waking
the echoes of the forest. Great trees fell, the
equilibrium of their divided mass so understood
that they dropped just where the guide wanted.
Soon there was a film of blue against the green,
the crackle of flames, the laughter of the burn-
ing wood. Before such a hearth, within walls
of such majestic verdure, our eggs, our venison
steaks, our slices of pork, became a banquet.
And when, as the dark deepened, the stars came
out to look at us, this ceiling of stars which
Egypt loved to imitate, so beautiful yet so lofty,
allowed the smoke of our cigars to rise unim-

52 WINDFALLS.

peeled ; nor, if it listened, did it send back any
echo of our laughter and merriment.

We slept well, though once a shriek rang
through the forest. We had instructed the
ladies, if in trouble, to call us by an imitation
of the call of the Indians, a cry interrupted by
quickly covering the mouth with the palm.

Our alarm was received with shouts of laugh-
ter. It was merely an experiment to discover
how the Indian call would work if needed.

If evening and night were delightful, morning
was not without its charm. Our dressing-room
gave us abundant room for our toilette. Our
faucet turned on a whole river at our service ;
and, if our ladies cared for cosmetics, the best
and wholesomest the world could offer them was
there, and it was called Morning Blush. Then
first appeared America's masterpieces in india-
rubber ; and to procure which light, firm, unodor-
ous ewers and basins, two or three lives were
sacrificed before the chemistry which brought
perfection was reached.

Then the walk in the woods before breakfast ;
for we must have one, be it ever so short, though
Fulton remonstrated, and the saucepan beguiled
us with its sorcery. What an aromatic air-bath
it was, and the sympathetic silence of those

A MONTH IN THE AD1RONDACKS. 53

endless woods. The air was blithe and bonny,
and our steps were elastic. And here is the
secret of our unexplained satisfaction in living,
and here is the secret, too, of the gain the invalid
finds in that mountain air. It is not only the
free life, but the quality of the air also. Men
of science tell us of the mysteries of ozone,
meaning the increasing presence and energy of
oxygen. The city has the least, the seaside the
most of it. But nearer the latter than the for-
mer is the energy of ozone amid wooded moun-
tains. The low-lying meadow has not much of
it ; but all the Adirondacks is raised many
hundred feet above the ocean level.

This is why the citizen, fatigued with his
long winter, instinctively seeks the seaside and
the mountains. As the poor are denied facili-
ties of locomotion, Christian society has already
discovered its duty to those who languish in
towns through the summer heat. And it is a
charity better than money to furnish them with
access to these reservoirs of strength. Any one
who has seen with what joy these wilted plants
at Nahant drink in its living air, will not forget
to do his share of the duty to little children.
Their pallid faces glow in the sea breeze ; and, as
some kind-hearted lady fills each little hand

54 WINDFALLS.

with a nosegay from her own garden, they return
home, grateful and content.

The history of our first encampment was
repeated the succeeding days, with only differ-
ences according to its locality and the state of
our larder.

The fine weather was unalterable. The In-
dian summer was at its stillest and brightest.
Something had favored the ripening of the
leaves, and their tints of gold, crimson, and
purple would have been glaring in a mid-
summer sun ; but the late autumn takes care to
glaze the too great splendor with her amber
atmosphere. This harmonizes and blends the
discordant colors, and the sky's tranquillity and
peace do not allow the vivid scene to jar upon
our senses.

The only change was the shortening day, and
the increasing chill at night, as the season ad-
vanced.

Our first camp was just below the falls of the
Racquette, a very pretty cascade, down which,
not without some excitement, we descended on
our return. Below it, is a still pool, in which
we fished ; here we tried both the fly and worms
from our much cherished tin box. But the
season was too far advanced for much success

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 55

here or elsewhere. We had to content our-
selves with our guide's stories of the prodigious
size and number of the trout he had caught

O

here when the time was more favorable. We
even saw the dusky backs of some monsters
moving about in the pool, but they were not at
our disposal. Not far above the fall ended our
longest and most terrible carry. I forget the
exact distance, but as we each carried something,
for even the ladies burdened themselves with
light articles, and I staggered about with an
oscillating bag of potatoes as above mentioned,
to us the space measured many miles. This
was our only carry of importance ; and we were
glad to do it, to understand better the stories
my friends had told me of the carries which they
had to traverse in Maine. At times we would
leave the boats, unburdened, for the sake of the
walk or a little shooting. We occasionally got
a few partridges ; but, with the exception of deer,
game is not very abundant in the wilderness.
Alwaj^s after this carry we slid along the glassy
floor ; and, as the winds were hushed, it was only
once or twice that our boats met the shock of
little waves in some open lake.

It was the very poetry of travel. We had
not to rough it anywhere ; and the ease and

56 WINDFALLS.

elegance of our conveyance, the simplicity yet
comfort of our lodging, and the living pictures
always passing before the eye, made us pronounce
our life in the woods superior in distinction to
any other form of existence.

The midge and the mosquito troubled us not ;
only once something was said of a snake, but
few, if any saw it ; and the dry, clean ground of
our camp furnished no manner of vermin. So
we glided, as in a dream, from river to lake and
from lake to river.

We passed from the Racquette River and
entered Forked Lake on the fifth of October.
Thence again by the river we rowed on till
the mountains rising from the lovely shores
of Racquette Lake saluted us. But behind
us we had left the extended waters of Long
Lake, the home of our chief guide. There
we pulled up midway down the lake, as all
tourists do, at Gary's. It was quite a settle-
ment: there must have been as many as two
houses. At Gary's we stopped for a day and
partook of civilization. We tasted once more
of the famous American stove which returns the
money you have spent upon it in carbonic acid
gas ; and we saw again America's housekeeper.
She bore like Atlas a world of care upon her

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 57

shoulders ; conscientious, fidgety, and faithful.
Worn to a shadow, it seemed a cruelty that she
should slave for us incessantly.

Something must be done for these devoted
housekeepers of ours. They are unlike the
same class in any other country. One might
hope to find on these breezy heights that robust-
ness which plain living and such air should en-
gender. The substratum of a nation should be
as a quarry from which the rough blocks of
human nature are cut, to be polished and chis-
elled into the Corinthian columns which deco-
rate while they support. But, if the nation give
way at its base, there is little security for any
true equilibrium. These good, weary women
who die in harness deserve a better fate. Let
us hope that the exhaustion of our climate will
be met by the tranquillity of an accomplished
civilization, when the duty as well as the pleas-
ure of repose will be better understood.

When returning to Gary's, from our excur-
sion beyond, our party met with an adventure
which showed the notion our guides had of the
strength of these country dames.

It had been the writer's misfortune, in the
confused transfer of o.ur belongings on board the

steamer on Lake Champlain, to lose a very val-
3*

58 WINDFALLS.

liable pair of Faxon's best boots ; high, solid,
and strong, as fittest for the forest. The con-
sternation I expressed for my loss was a subject
of endless mirth for the rest of my party. At
Keesville I got another pair ; but, as I ex-
pected, so inferior that I had little comfort in
them. They were moulded for some abnormal
foot ; for where the leather should have curved
in it curved out, and vice versa. After much
wearing, an indenting point hurt me, and was
filling the boot with blood. This decided me, a
few miles above Gary's, to take to a boat and
descend the Racquette with the luggage, while
the rest of the party, the gentlemen with guns,
and the ladies with walking sticks, strolled
across on foot. There was a wagon for them to
go in if they chose ; but the roads were heavy,
while the turf was springy and pleasant. So,
leaving the wagon toiling after, they walked
merrily ahead.

When our boats came in sight of Gary's and
no wagon was visible, our guides, for we brought
them all, were in a great state of excitement.
We hurried to the landing, and they broke into
lamentations.

" Dear me ! ' cried Fulton, " they must have
been left behind in that horrid mud ; I can see

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 59

the ladies now, tuckered out and crying by the
wayside."

When we reached the house, we found the
ladies very comfortable, round the fire and read-
ing aloud. To be sure one, to whom cats are
a profanation, had found one on the stair, and
had passed a bad quarter of an hour. How
they laughed at the fears of our guides ! They
said the little walk was delightful, only five or
six miles ; and they were not in the least tired.
" Well," exclaimed Fulton, " I know there is
no woman hereabouts who could 'a done it.
Why, bless you, they never walk a mite ! '

I must not longer delay lazily, like a trout,
eddying round in these river reaches, or lying
indolent upon the bank, below the fragrant
hemlocks. Let us hurry past the shadowy crests
beyond Long Lake, and which evening turns
to a purple, as if each were the broad leaf of an
immense pansy. Past the swelling forest which
the Racquette cuts with its thread of silver, past
Racquette Lake, past Forked Lake, whose silent
headlands crimson the water with the dyes of
autumn, till we find ourselves arrested, for a
moment only, by its pebbly beach. Thus far,
all is open, smiling, frequented; but now, we
are aiming at the heart of the wilderness, and

60 WINDFALLS.

launch away from the tourist's ground into the
majestic solitudes of a nature which shall be all
our own. We are to visit Blue Mountain Lake,
the terminus of our wanderings ; make, as it
were, a home there ; get to love it ; hate to
leave it ; and still keep in our breasts its sunny
image, so that it seems to us we have lived there
for ever.

The little stream that led thither, was no
river, only a wide brook. It had rocks close to
us, from which the wild flowers peered at us
with their little eyes. Trees, with vines hang-
ing to them, leaned forward, and covered us
with their shadow. Then, looking past some
dusky knoll, we would see the sun strike be-
yond, and the maple-leaves burn like a chaplet
of rubies. Then again, we would glance into
the blue of the middle stream, over which the
shadow of an eagle sailing overhead would flut-
ter and pass away. We saw pictures everywhere
of a scenery which America only possesses, and
at length we also made a picture ourselves.

We stopped to lunch in a most picturesque
place. I am now looking at a sketch of it, and
all the delights of the hour come back as I look.
We emptied our boats, and drew them up on the
shore. Some we overturned to lean against, as

A MONTH IN THE AD1RONDACKS. 61

we lunched ; while, upon a knoll beyond, one
of those impromptu fires which looks as if a city
were burning, was wasting its energy for the

O ' O Oi/

small purpose of furnishing us a few cups of
hot coffee. Two great trees on the left, embow-
ered us with their overarching boughs. Among
the roots at their feet, were mosses of many
colors. Here and there upon the russet of the
bank, a fallen leaf would lie like a jewel. Dis-
persed among the leaves and moss, were fish-
ing-rods, gun-cases, skillets, and powder-flasks.
And by their side after a careful sprinkling,
our precious box of worms modestly asserted
itself.

And the pipe which followed the roast potato,
and where are potatoes better than on Long
Lake ! the broiled trout, and the aromatic
Mocha, into what content did they not waft us !
Call it physical satisfaction if you will, but the
comforts of the body, when set amidst such
weather, such scenery, such society, fill up for
man a cup of perfect happiness.

When we can easily and innocently enjoy so
much, why is it that life must know many color-
less gray hours, the darkness and the rain ?

And then, alas ! too soon away, leaving, as we
fancied, the ghostly bloom of our happiness, the

62 WINDFALLS.

impress of a moment's personality which we
had made alive, to fade away from that bank
of many colors.

There must have been at one time beavers
on that little stream, or perhaps otters. Soon
after our visit to the Adirondacks, a club was
formed, which for no great sum purchased an
area of five miles square, and thus gave itself
the satisfaction of a proprietorship in the wil-
derness. That club was composed of many re-
nowned men, and was visited by many lovely
and noble women. A whole lake belonged
to it, called Ampersand, from its form, which
it resembled. It owned, too, a brook like this,
where once at evening, with swift and sinu-
ous grace, I saw two otters glide over a bank
and drop into its stream. We allowed no gun
to disturb them ; for they were our friends and
companions, and their charter of the wilderness
had a longer lease than ours. No one of us saw
a more beautiful cottage for the forest than our
own. Every I6g of it was the trunk of a shapely
pine, neatly dove-tailed at the ends. It had six
sleeping-rooms and a great central hall, where
was placed the long table for our meals. All
cooking was done outside, where screening trees
protected us from the fire and smoke. We had

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 63

a storehouse for provisions, and ice was cut
for us in the winter. We had boats in abun-
dance ; and we could use them either to procure
the deepest bathing, or to follow the bay of the
invisible hounds along the mountain-side, need-
ing no better guide than their cry to know
where the deer would lead them, before betak-
ing himself to the lake. And then, like an
arrow, the little skiff silently shot across the
w^ater to intercept him, as he nearecl a majestic
island, to receive the fatal shot which could
replenish our larder.

Or our men of science would be rowed where
on the spot they could fathom the intricacies
of Natural History. Little lectures on the ova
of the trout, or the parasite of the deer, turned
our rustic play-ground, for a moment, into a
college. And at evening we practised with
the rifle, to learn if the hand which could hold
a microscope, and the trained eye of science,
made a professor the equal in skill of the best
hunter. Nor were the ladies wanting in skill.
And as the bullet rang in the bull's eye, with
admiring faces the guides would surround and
congratulate the fair sports-woman. And when
at night the rain came, shall we forget him who
gave to the gorilla its name, as he buried him-

64 WINDFALLS.

self, defying the elements, in his burrow of earth,
with only a protection for the head?

The same day of our lunch, we reached, in
good time for dinner, the camp which was to be
our home for many days and the terminus of
our excursion. Our little river emptied into a
large lake, on whose shores we saw the only
house there, that of the celebrated Ned Bunt-
line, whose neighborly good-will, before we left,
we -drew upon, through necessity, by asking the
gift of a sack of potatoes. And then we en-
tered Blue Mountain Lake, our favorite of all
the lakes. It was just large enough to seem
wholly ours. Its mountains sheltered it from
the wind, and the lake repaid their protection
by keeping clear its mirror for them to admire
themselves, and see their autumnal coats of
many colors.

It had an island or two, with lofty pines upon
them, whose dry moss of a tender green, and
half a foot thick, made couches for us whence
we could watch the sunsets, and hear the laugh-
ter of the loon.

Every lake has, or should have, a loon for its
presiding spirit. Its shriek and laughter hu-
manize the spot, and seem the echoes from afar
of our life with its two extremes. Sometimes

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 65

the cry sounds as if mocking us, and at others
it is one of sympathy. The loon is not there
to be shot, or, if that were possible, to be eaten. .
It evades, by a dive, the bullet. It is there only
as a voice, and it talks to us, and to the wilder-
ness, of what it has overheard in nights along
the sea-coast, of men and their ways.

And our lake had strands of silver, where we
could walk in the moonlight, waking the echoes
with song, interrupted by the bitter criticism of
the owl. In the woods at night, any noise you
may not understand generally turns out to have
been made by an owl. It can cry like a child
that is hurt, draw corks from imaginary bottles,
whistle and cough as well as hoot. Even after
you think you understand it, it surprises you
with discordant novelties.

It was our good fortune to find there an
abandoned camp. A one-story building of
coarsest boards, and with a slanting roof of
bark, is then a palace. It is man's primitive
hut, and we lie there as may have our fore-
fathers of the stone age. Guides, dogs, and we,
rest side by side. We converse little, we never
quarrel, and are all aiming at the same object,
a good square sleep. We only go to our
couch of wraps and balsam fir, when our eyes

E

66 WINDFALLS.

will 110 longer stay open or our stories give out.
We rise with the sun and make our toilette in
the open air. Our table is a tree-stump, on
which our guide places our caoutchouc wash-
bowl, or we slip away and swim in the neigh-
boring lake. Once, when stooping like a heron
over the tree-stump, in the act of washing, I
heard a twig snap in the silence. Turning my
head, I saw my own guide quietly curving a
finger with a gesture of invitation. I knew what
it meant ; for the dogs' thunder had been rolling
for an hour along the hillside. In less than a
minute, gun in hand, I was seated at the boat's
stern, and my guide feathering his oar in silence.
What a picture it was ! and fortunately one
that memory loves too well to forget. There
was the moving dot, with a silver line behind
it, and that we knew was the deer. And there
were the other guides, pausing in their boats
for us to come up. I would not look for a time
at these figures ; for such a morning should not
be stained with even necessary blood. The
thought was a discord, where all else was
pearl, only made rosy where the far hills shot
it with the tenderest gold and crimson. The
lake still slumbered in the mountains' encircling
arms ; only an ill-advised cloud or two was up

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 67

so early. The owl had gone to bed, and the
loon had not yet left his reeds. All was purity
and innocence ; and yet our future dinners
had to be provided for. So, at a long shot, I
was lucky enough to put a bullet through that
swimming dot. In five minutes from the time
I heard the twig snap, I was back again by the
stump to finish my toilette. A pair of bright
eyes peeped from the ladies' tent inquiringly,

44 Ready for your walk ? '

"In a minute ; ' ' was the reply.

I carefully avoided encountering the guides,
as we approached the lake, and, even more, the
mighty carcass, our spolia opima. We took
our walk along the strand, rejoicing to have the
word suggest promenades in such utter contrast.
We even were wicked enough to hatch a pun
where the silence knows not the snap of such
fireworks. We talked of our draught of eaiiy-
purl, still thinking of London's Strand. Our
mood was not difficult ; and the laugh which
followed our tiny jokes owed less to our fun
than to the spirits and good-nature the morning
bred in us.

"But you heard the dogs? Where do you
suppose they are ? I half thought I heard a
gun too."

68 WINDFALLS.

Without reply, I drew them a little into the
wood, where, to their surprise, depending from
a branch, they saw a mighty buck.

" All done since first I called you for our
walk, and was shown that pretty proof of un-
preparedness, you remember."

As the nights grew fresher, our great fire
sparkled more vividly, and was more enjoyed
by us. When the flame died, we reclined not
far from its huge bed of coals, a rose-colored
mass, on which, at intervals, like down, lay the
tender white of its ashes, we would watch
the great core of heat calcine and clean the
pipe-bowls, which thence came to us pure as
when they left the maker's hands. We pulled
the long ears of " Watch," and praised him
for his running. We would mark the stars
as they sowed themselves between the pine
branches, and try to guess from which side
came that sudden hiccough of the owl, if owl
it were. And then, while we reclined in com-
fort, knocking the ashes from his pipe, our
guide would tell us the legends of the forest.

There is something very winning in the man-
ner of these guides. Their speech is Doric,
not Corinthian. It is pictorial, because every
thing they describe is painted as if seen by the

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 69

best eyes in the world. It is direct, hearty,
and, above all, manly. Their adventures are not
poisoned with ink, but stream fresh from living
lips. Their narrative is spiced with technical
phrases : words which grew in the woods as
naturally as a tree ; they run with the sap of the
maple ; they are crisp as an axe-stroke. How
different from the slang and argot of cities. The
one breathes of the freshness of nature ; the
other of the pollution of slums and the den of
the thief. They told us modestly their exploits
concerning the loup-cervier and the wild-cat.
With our guns so near us, these had the relish
of danger, and we could share in the courage
and skill of our comrades. And they spoke,
with amusing words of wonder and disgust, of
one of Europe's effete children who had wan-
dered into their neighborhood. He was a de-
bauched Englishman, and a fair friend accom-
panied him. With staring eyes they told of the
luxury of his equipment, his prodigality at the
beginning, and his amazing brass ; how he or-
dered them about, paying them well, crashing
and smashing through the woods, till, one fine
morning, he disappeared, leaving his fair friend,
his dogs, and his unpaid bills to wonder over
his departure, and to guess of his whereabouts.

70 WINDFALLS.

"We pitied her, and looked after the woman,
poor thing. I 'd have liked to yank him into
the Racquette for clesartin' that wife o' hisn,
but we levelled on his dogs at any rate." The
guide meant to say levied, and that the money
the dogs brought was used to pay his bills.

One of the best stories the guides told was
about the loss of a little child in the woods, and
its recovery ; the pathos of it was direct and
genuine, and every word came from the heart.
It was something in this way.

" Did you ever, Mister, hearn tell of the craze,
or mayhap, though I guess not, have had it
yourself? Wall, you see a man keeps stiddy
and straight in the woods as long as he has the
blazes to go by, and can see right without his
head's turnin.' It comes on him all at once like.
He gets a bit dubersome about his trail, finds
he 's gone wrong of a sudden by the looks of
things, puts about quick, up and down, to right
and left, only getting into a snarl the wuss every
minute ; and then he gives up and stands still,
and knows he 's got it. He 'd hearn tell of the
craze, and now he knows he 's got it. 'Tain't a
common scare, that. Why, bless yer, all a feller
ever knew then runs out of his head like gun-
powder out of a flask. Why, a feller 'd pass

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 71

straight afore his own door without knowing his
house. He '11 go right over the track he 's most
used to, and won't know it a mite. That 's 'cause
he 's got the craze, which muddles him all up.
I guess when they aren't picked up soon, they
wander off into the thickest part of the wood,
and git low and weak like, and sit down on
some log, or crawl about on the dry leaves till
they starve to death.

" Wall, now, you see I was livin' down to a
little town, you may call it, of five or six housen,
t'other side of Long Lake. We 're sort o' inti-
mate, living so close together, and knew about
each other's folks. 'T won't do for a chap to
be stuck up and onhelpful in the woods, where
we had need of each other ; and, besides, we
like to see the gals and women when we can,
and that ain't much, we 're off campin' so all the
while. And, I tell ye, down to a man's house
called Stevy there was jist about the nicest and
puttiest four-year-old boy you ever sot eyes on.
He was real smart, too, and likely for one o' his
bigness. He 'd heave away at Stevy 's axe as if
he could handle it, till we had to take it away
from him for fear o' his hurtin' himself. And,
bright and brave as he was, he looked putty as
a little gal, for his yellow hair curled all over

72 WINDFALLS.

his head and hung down his neck, an' his cheeks
was like apples, not that sailer kind they hez
down in them fever and ag'er mashes.

" Wall, ye see we all loved that little feller as
if he was our own child. As fur as we 'd see him
we 'd cry out, ' Blossy,' and he 'd come toddlin'
along with his arms up, jes' as if we were his
own father.

" One day, the neighbors, all but Stevy's folks
and mine, went off for a couple o' days maple
sugarin'. It was late March, and they went to
see to the tubs and how the juice run. It was a
big bit down to S croon Lake, and they mightn't
be back for two or three days. 'T was real
lonesome without 'urn, an' I tried to fill up the
time with splittin' up Avood for the old woman,
for the winter stock was used up.

" Arter a while my arms got enough of it, so
I went down to Stevy's to smoke a pipe and
have a talk. He 'd been fussin' round, too, git-
tin' his winter traps stowed away, and puttin'
things to rights. So I went and sot down by
the chimney, and we had a good smoke together.
All of a sudden I missed suthin', and said,
quick,

" ' Where 's Blossy ? I don't see the little
crittur anywhere round.'

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 73

" ' Wall,' said Stevy, ' I hain't seen him myself
since mornin'. I guess he 's clown to your house,
ain't he.'

" ' He wasn't when I came away. Let 's go
see.'

" We both on us pretended we wasn't oneasy.
But we went straight enuff to my house, with
not a word on the way. The child wasn't high
or low, or anywhere round. I thought he might
a' hid in the wood-pile, playing hide-and-seek
like. When she heard me crying out as loud as I
could, ' Blossy ! Blossy ! ' my old woman went on
like one distracted : turnin' over of every thin',
lookin' down the well in a skeery kind of way,
upsettin' all the empty barrels, and then of a
sudden runnin' a piece into the wood, singin'
out as she ran, 4 Blossy ! Blossy ! ' Arter that,
she came home, walkin' slow, and sot right down
on a stone by the door without sayin' a word.
Then, lookin' up to me with a sickly look in her
face, she said,

' John Forester, I guess that child 's lost.'
It was gittin' on nigh dusk, and the way we
used what was left of daylight 't is no good to
tell yer. We scooted up and down and round in
circles till we was dead beat. Suthin' took away

my strength till I could hardly draw one foot
4

u

1C

74 WINDFALLS.

arter the other. I was so dead beat that I
wouldn't go upstairs, but slept awhile like a
log on the settle. The old woman had gone and
put a piller onder my head.

" The next day Stevy and I were up with the
light and doin' it all over again, only at times
we went a long piece into the wood; and I re-
membered a little pond there was down in the
holler, where once I had took Blossy to show
him the turtles, and give him some chickerber-
ries to chew. The chickerberries and the turtle
was there, but there was no Blossy ; so I cum
back down-hearted, and met Stevy, who looked
as white as birch-bark, and, cat chin' me by the
sleeve, said, hoarselike,

" i This is the day the men come home from
the maple lot. Les' go out and meet 'um and
make 'um spread and scoot through all the
wood.'

" So we did ; and 't warn't long afore I hailed
'um. You never see fellers so knocked up as
they was with the news ; but we set about
huntin' for him right away. There wasn't a
squirrel track or path we didn't foller up, but
't warnt no use. I told Stevy, ' I don't b'lieve
you '11 git that child agin ; now, don't cry, but
harden yourself to it.'

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 75

" ' Seems 's if Blossy was too putty and angel-
like to stay here, and so they have come down
and fetched him away.'

" We two couldn't look no more, and went
straight home ; but the other fellers went rangin'
furder and furder into the wood in great sweeps
and circles. They wouldn't give up. So Stevy
and I got back ; and, conceitin' that he and his
missis would feel lonesome without Blossy, I
went with him down to his house ; and we
sot round, not speaking much, but I knew he
was glad I was there. Every now and then
Blossy's mother would come out from where she
was rummagin' about, a tryin' to stun herself,
and looked at us with hard dry eyes an' a face
pinched as if she 'd bin a month sick.

" When she come the last time a questionin'
with her dry eyes, I couldn't stand it no longer ;
so I riz straight up and streaked it into the
wood as if she 'd shot me out of a gun. I went
up a great cart track which ran down to Joe's
clearin'. There was a path a few rods from the
house which crossed it at right angles. I was
jist drivin' ahead, meanin' not to fetch up till I 'd
got t'other side of the trail of the boys who was
huntin' for him, for I thought I couldn't bear
that look in her eye agin if I hadn't found the
child.

76 WINDFALLS.

" Just as I reached the path, my eye caught
the flutter o' suthin blue down it to the right.
I stood stock still, I felt so weak and trembled
so. I had jist time to git behind a big maple
there was there and watch. I peeked round
keerfully, and, Lord o' massy, if there wasn't
little Blossy as peart as a robin, and a walkin'
along in the middle o' the path as easy as ef he
hadn't left home an hour. I was glad to see
he had a bunch o' berries in his hand, for that
told me he 'd had sense enuff to find some-
thin' it couldn't be much, any way to eat.
I knew he must be dreadful weak with fright
and fastin', and I guessed I 'd better not come
on him too suddin, so I ambushed him a bit,
and got into the path about a rod ahead, and,
turnin' my back, pretended to be busy watchin'
a red squirrel there was there.

" I laughed out to see him jump so putty
when I threw twigs at him. I heard the little
feet behind me draggin', oh, so slow, one arter
the other. Pretindin' I 'd just seen him, I said,
over my shoulder, 'Look now, little boy, and
see how nice he will jump ! ' for the squirrel had
got too far on the bough to go back, and me a
peltin' him so. Just as the squirrel jumped, I
slipped my hand into Blossy's, and said, * Wasn't

*
A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 77

that putty now ? ' and then I led him along
ever so gently, and allers talkin' of the squirrel.
At last, when I could see that he knew nie, and
his little hand tightened on my ringers, I took
him up quietly, and, turnin' my head, I see he
was asleep on my shoulder. Arter that, I didn't
walk, I kind o' glided along the ground as
swift as a bird flies. When I got near the
housen, I see the old woman a standin' in the
doorway. When she obsarved us both, she
flung her arms out, and would ha' screeched, but
I put a finger on my mouth, and she dropped
her arms and stood stock still as if she was
froze. When I cum up to her, I whispered
hard, ' Keep quiet, and just you put the boy
to bed without wakin' him now, and, when he
wakes o' hisself, give him jist ever so little o'
bread and milk ; then, later, he '11 eat hearty.'
She smiled all over ; and, I tell yer, 't was good
for me to see that dry, hungry look gone out of
her eyes.

" 'T warn't more 'n an hour arter this afore
all the boys come back to find if there was any
news of the child. They wanted to hurrah, but
o' course I wouldn't let 'um, and I made 'urn all
go up to my house where we could talk it over,
and be as noisy as we wanted to.

78 WINDFALLS.

" And they was some ; for they had been shet
up so long, and were so glad, it was nateral they
should. And, sittin' round the fire a smoking
quietly, an old feller, who was there a standin'
up, took his pipe out o' his mouth, and said,

u .

I '11 tell yer how it was, boys, that that child
comes out, arter sleepin' a night in the woods, so
fresh and peart. 'T aint lie that had the craze,
he 's too young ; we ' is that had the craze fur
him: "

We got so attached to our camp on Blue
Mountain Lake, that we never dreamed of leav-
ing it. The days succeeded each other, each one
more beautiful than the last. The pageant of
autumn was undiminished in splendor ; we could
not see that a leaf had fallen, for no breeze to
shake them disturbed the utter stillness. There
was something sacred in the purity of the air.
The forest aisles, the colored architecture of the
encircling hills, made the place a temple, -r- a
sylvan temple, where, every hour, our hearts
became more devotional, and one we knew we
could not find elsewhere. One of our ladies ex-
pressed the general feeling, when she said, with
enthusiasm,

u I have been welcomed in the palace of no-
bles, and dwelt in many famous houses, but I

A MONTH IN THE ADIRONDACKS. 79

never felt the regret in leaving these that I shall
when I see the last of our little camp."

"Then we had better go to-morrow," said
Robert Fulton. We were silent with indigna-
tion and amazement : then he added, " Let us go
when we are so happy and have so little to re-
gret. Last night you remember the wolves
howled in a circle round our camp ; and that
may mean change o' weather. If we go now
all will be well ; and I should be sorry to have
the snow or rain come, and you all draggled
and miserable in the boats." And so we swal-
lowed our regrets, and with a sigh departed.
We rowed back to Gary's in the most placid
weather, and there enjoyed a famous hunt, dur-
ing which we secured a gigantic buck, which
we brought home as a trophy. We had wagons
to convey us from the upper end of Long Lake
to the steamboat landing on Lake Champlain ;
but we found the road so rough, mostly made
corduroy fashion, with great gaps where the
logs had fallen out, that we walked nearly the
whole way to the lake. It took us a day and a
half to get to the steamboat. On the boat our
shooting equipment and our odd dresses made
us objects of curiosity to the passengers. Be-
fore night we had reached Rutland.

80 WINDFALLS:

After a square meal, we took a pathetic fare-
well of each other at our bedroom doors ;
for we meant to sleep, and didn't know when
we should wake up. Such a sleep as some
never know held us in its soft embrace till
far into the following day. We were just
in time for the cars, and reached Boston at
night.

The air there seemed thin, and wanting in
nourishment. We were so full of the woods
that I proposed that we should camp out in my
half-acre garden in Cambridge. The saddle of
the buck was delicious, and was proof of our
prowess to the interested family. As we di-
vided its succulent meat, stories were told of
our adventures ; and all who heard wished they
had been there.

We had left the Aclirondacks, but none of us
have ever forgotten them. We soon heard from
Robert Fulton, and he told us that, before a
week had elapsed from the time we left Blue
Mountain Lake, the whole country was buried
in snow. How wise had he been in precipi-
tating our departure. I subjoin a sonnet writ-
ten on the morning of our departure from Blue
Mountain Lake.

A MONTH IN THE AD1RONDACKS. 81

BLUE MOUNTAIN LAKE.

Camp of the woods ! we see thy tiny tent

Struck with a sorrow which we have not felt
When from majestic palace-walls we went,

Welcomed where Luxury's spoiled children dwelt.
A freer hospitality is thine.

The largess of the forest all is ours :
Our banquet served by sumptuous star-shine ;

Our carpet, the fallen forest leaves in showers ;
Our hearth, a holocaust of royal trees,

Through the thin glass of whose ascending smoke
Their forest brothers nod before the breeze

White with the moon ; and, startled, we have woke
To hear unscared the hollow night reply

In mellow thunder to the wolf's wild cry.

82 WINDFALLS.

ILL

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY.

" REMOVE yon skull from out the scattered heaps :

Is that a temple where a God may dwell 1 ?
Why, even the worm at last deserts her shattered cell.

Look on its broken arch, its ruined wall,
Its chambers desolate, and portals foul.
Yes, this was once Ambition's airy hall,
The dome of thought, the palace of the soul.
Behold, through each lack-lustre, eyeless hole,
The gay recess of Wisdom and of Wit,
And Passion's host, that never brook'd control.
Can all saint, sage, or sophist ever writ
People this lonely tower, this tenement refit ? "

CHILDE HAROLD, Cant. ii.

TS phrenology a science? At its beginning it
seemed to try to be, and indeed in some sense
was, a science. For the vague preferences of
the mind, its passions and its tastes, as taught
by the Scotch school and many a metaphysician,
till lost in the far blue of Plato's dialogues, it
substituted an apparent accuracy. Let us not
say that phrenology sought physical residences
for the propensities, but that the faculties de-
clared themselves when the skull was carefully
contemplated. Germany seems the bird which

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 83

should naturally hatch such an egg. Loving
metaphysics, with systems of philosophy chas-
ing each other as do waves upon the sea-beach,
yet with the persistent plodding which steadies
their airy nights of speculation, from Germany, if
there be such a truth as phrenology, it was sure
to come.

It has had but three teachers of importance,
and of these, two were German. Gall first
discovered it; but, dying not long after, it re-
mained for his disciple Spurzheim to propagate
it in the world. As he passed through Great
Britain, he fired the conviction of a canny but
ardent Scot, George Combe, who in his turn
became a knight-errant for its sake.

We do not know enough of the patient labors
of Gall, enough of his defeats and triumphs, till
he allotted chambers for the guests of

" The dome of thought, the palace of the soul."

His method was simple. He brought together
for his notice skulls of men remarkable for good
or evil gifts. If they agreed in any salience of the
surface, he noted it. Of course of the less obvi-
ous human propensities, he must have long lain
in wait for proof. But it is remarkable that
when he had built up his " dome of thought,"

84 WINDFALLS.

stone by stone, the plan of the master should
remain authoritative to this day. Combe added
nothing, perhaps Spurzheim did somewhat. An
enthusiast of our own, from the West, made
some brilliant additions, and suggested more
things than are now found on the charts.
Later we shall speak of these suggestions of
Buchanan more at length.

Now, is phrenology a science ? Of course not,
in the true modern meaning of the word. It
is in taking to itself such a dangerous appella-
tion, that science catches each fresh discovery
of man's nature. No ! the vague, lambent
flickerer of Hadrian will not bide imprison-
ment, even that of a name. Its motions are
not this wise. It is just that one thing in the
universe which cannot be surrounded, dictated
to, and shackled. This seems plain enough to
any one who observes the nature of the human
mind. But if, by any happy chance, it does
take to itself a material aspect, how glad should
be the world which always needs any help in
this quarter !

It is noticeable that the Scotch school of
metaphysicians talk of mind in general, its laws
of association, its inherited ideas, if you will ;
but never put a man breathing before you. It

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 85

is interesting to know the methods of benevo-
lence, but it is also interesting to know who has
got that tendency. Very misty reading now is
Dugald Stewart on the mind ; for we fear that
more than half of his mental laws are unimpor-
tant or mistakes. Would reading him help
Fowler, and the many phrenologists who aston-
ish their clients by revelations so clear and exact
at times, that their friends merrily shout as they
hear them enumerated? And often will the
patient of this scrutiny retire to brood over a
knowledge of himself, which before he scarcely
dared avow, and which he thinks does something
for that self-inspection which the Greeks held
of supreme importance ; namely, yvayOi aeavrov.
Courageous as were the Messrs. Fowler, they
could hardly tell every thing. It might be dan-
gerous to announce to a criminal his impending
crime, or to the swindler his prospective delin-
quency. We were always told that it was done
with the aid of physiognomy. Of course it was,
and why not ? For the physiognomy is made by
the phrenology. The two pull together and do
not quarrel. But while the eye read the face, and
even got the body to whisper of a character, in
the main the mind of man was got at, as by the
scholars of Dr. Howe, through the skull's raised

86 WINDFALLS.

letters, which finally were as deftly interpreted
as do the poor blind children their horn-books
of basso-rilievo. Mentally, man is a unit ; we
know him as such, and find a difficulty of be-
lief in an aggregation of powers round the cen-
tral life. If this unity were absolute, each man
would be but a repetition of another ; for the
simple motive forces of his nature are common
to each. Fear and hate, judgment, kindness,
selfishness, more or less, must be common gifts
to all. Yet we notice in men an infinite diver-
sity : each mental faculty is bestowed in unequal
proportions or sometimes wholly withheld. The
wisdom which can give a statesman the guid-
ance of a nation may be allied with indifference
to the arts, deafness to musical concord, and
alas! a conscience so poor that that wisdom
fails to furnish good personal guidance. And
to the objection so common of old that matter
must have little or nothing to do with the life
of man's spirit, modern science is unfriendly.
These specialties of mind, this inherited bias of
character, this predetermined, prenatal groove
of thought and feeling, must be largely owing
to physical conditions which modify the pure
spirituality of the brain. The sanity of thought
may be there, but how dwarfed and distorted

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 87

by prenatal necessities we learn more and more.
And if forty men, with fulness at the organ of
tune or order, and forty others in which these are
wanting, show, severally, orderliness and enjoy-
ment of harmony, and indifference to these, may
not such an agreement be something more than
coincidence, and bear some modest evidence
that Gall and Spurzheim are not wholly wrong.

Physicians usually scout such a possibility ;
but we are aware that, while they may be famil-
iar with every convolution and fibre of the brain,
they have no theory of their own, as to any
connection between these and the action of the
mind. Their evidence, therefore, can only be
negative : they are not enough students of the
mind to bring for it any corroboration from the
brain, and the leap from matter to mind is as
difficult to them as for any one else.

But we must confess that a flavor of charla-
tanism accompanies the phrenologist as it does
the homoeopathist, the magnetist, and the spirit-
ualist. Yet none of these will be pooh-poohed
out of the world, though the dictate to be gone
has come from the bent and angry brows of
professional omniscience. A thousand reasons
start up to explain man's natural hostility to
most of these. It seems very like Siiibad's sue-

88 WINDFALLS.

cessful command to the expansive Genius to get
him back into the narrow limitations of his bot-
tle ; as if immortal mind would dwell in an attic
chamber of the " Palace of the soul ! '

This feeling springs from the horror felt at mind
being tributary to matter or expressing itself
through it ; and yet, all the while, one knows
that it is only through that it can express itself.
For man seems all matter. It is a handsome
concession to allow, that mind may reside in the
brain at all. But that at least does seem con-
quered to the world. And, perhaps, something
more in relation to that brain may be conquered
too. The question before us now is, in relation
to Phrenology, Has it achieved for the world
any thing? Can we say that men may turn to it
with confidence to know more of mental myste-
ries ? Is it fairly beaten out of the field, or does it
win unacknowledged battles like the Desdiehado,
overthrowing its foes and rolling them in the dust,
but without blazon or cognizance ? Does not the
novelist, without claiming to be phrenology's dis-
ciple, carefully observe the numbered head on
his mantel-piece, in describing the good and bad
characters of his book ? Does never by any chance
the caricaturist give a forehead " villanous low'
to his ruffian, or hare-like ears and flattened

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 89

cornbativeness to his coward ? If we may trust
Punch, phrenology is always, dictating the pen-
cil's curve in the merry whimsical heads of that
fascinating solace of the week, where Fun, the
daughter of Good-breeding, knows so well the
limits of vulgarity and cruelty.

In fact, did one ever find a sculptor or painter
whose intuition did not make him its disciple ?
Look at the long line of consular and imperial
busts with which Florence and Rome greet the
American thirsting for knowledge ! Caesarism
seems almost made to prove phrenology. A
man was fed and pampered with self-indul-
gence, with no check within or without, till, be-
fore his taking-ofT, his disposition got the same
bloated abnormalness which makes dear to the
epicure the famous fowl of Strasbourg. We
can see in some cases, the process of cramming
and expansion ; as in Nero's head, which, when
young, showed those charming possibilities of
virtue which Mr. Story would have us think
he had, and in which belief his mother shared,
with many another mother, less foully betrayed.

I myself was amazed to find, from an authentic
bust, the hugeness of the organ of secretiveness
in the head of Tiberius. It is this organ in com-
bination with destructiveness, which gives the

90 WINDFALLS.

cat its relish for playing with its victim before
destroying it. All these imperial busts phre-
nologically correspond to the characters as de-
scribed by the historians. Can the amiable
Trajan, or the noble Marcus Aurelius, be mis-
taken for Vitellius or Caracalla? In Vitellius,
the organ of alimentiveness is preposterously
vast ; and in the gladiatorial head of Caracalla we
discern at once the force that made his brother
Geta so slight an obstacle in his path. Any one
who cares to understand history, through por-
traits and busts, will certainly study phrenology.
If that does not put its seal upon the individual,
we may have doubts. One would like to see a
good bust of Lucretia Borgia, now that a more
careful attention to the facts of history has re-
habilitated, at least somewhat, that victim of the
necessities of an opera and the criminal needs of
M. Victor Hugo.

And yet this teaching has no acknowledged
place in any curriculum. We believe, indeed,
the college at Glasgow endowed a professorship
of phrenology, but that was in the days and
through the influence of Mr. George Combe.
Yet we do not see that there is much need of
any endowment in the matter. A careful, eager
study of the accredited phrenological organs in

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 91

common busts suffices, if daily observation com-
plements the labor. A habit of thinking what
the individual head expresses, when regarding
a new acquaintance, soon furnishes an aptitude
which gets only more facile by practice. To be
sure, the great bulk of heads would tell very
little, because there is little to be told ; where
no extraordinary gifts exist, where the tempera-
ment is sluggish, a head may make a certain
show of fulness ; but the quality of the brain is
too poor to produce powerful thought. Quality
is always the essential thing. This is a material
mystery, accompanying always the great gifts of
remarkable men. Of course, Shakespeare had
only a human head on his shoulders, and could
not be differentiated from others by a dome like
St. Peter's, though we may think he well de-
served it. One instinctively feels that no out-
Avard material evidence can explain so unique a
phenomenon as his genius. But is not he sure
to have that ample circle, that full swing of all
the powers, which make every human faculty its
guest ; while imagination, creating, from his in-
tuitions, every possible combination of humanity,
holds its central place like an eye which reviews
all things, superior to the multitude it evokes?
The head of Shakespeare, or rather his counte-

92 WINDFALLS.

nance was probably carefully copied from a mask
in wax which still exists. We can ask nothing
more than such a brow, such an eye, with its fit
prominence and the short and delicate mouth.
This mouth is bereft of its natural expression of
life, the rigid lines of death being copied. But
the village tyro, who fashioned the awkward
hands and clumsy drapery, never could have
wrought that face but by slavishly copying some-
thing before him.

One of the awkward facts for phrenology is,
that the interior of the skull is not always ex-

/

actly conformed to the external lines. I believe
it is physiologically true that in us the softer
parts fashion the harder ; that is, because there
is more life in the former. Where a faculty is
unused, the bone may thicken; but where it is
active, the bone sometimes will be worn. almost
as thin as paper. This was shown in several
skulls by Mr. Buchanan of Ohio, of whom I
spoke above. Holding a candle inside a skull,
we saw the double organs when active, admitting
the golden light, in just the form of the organ,
through to the outward eye.

Mr. Buchanan made many discoveries, most
of which were fanciful ; but his ingenuity and
success, in some particulars, made him the acute

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 93

American we could desire at the heels of the
German and Scotch philosophers. He would
stimulate the organs in the head of a living per-
son, and thereby get many curious results. A
member of the temperance society could be made
to stagger disreputably round the room ; prudent
merchants would empty their pockets at the hint
of benevolence, and others, notoriously generous,
would close their fists and button their pockets
at the suggestion of acquisitiveness. But later
experience of the laws of biology, and the marvel-
lous control which some minds have over others,
causing them to feel, as they command them to
feel, and experience what they desire, makes it
probable that he was introducing, at times, this
influence.

It seems generally conceded now, after long
and weary denial, that the thing clumsily called
Animal Magnetism exists. Indeed some people
who always denied its claims are found explain-
ing away the deeper mysteries of spiritualism
by limiting that to this. Animal magnetism is
certainly a very extraordinary thing. By passes,
waves of the hand, certain persons of sensibility
seem to have their personality annulled or merged
in that of the operator. Their will abdicates,
and flies to add itself to the will of the magnet-

94 WINDFALLS.

izer. Two facts strike one forcibly in this new
condition. One is, that the will and intellect
seem somewhat incorporate with the controlling
mind, and the other that new powers are induced,
new capabilities evoked by a wave of the hand.
The rudder of the mind is unshipped. The tie
which bound man's inner nature to the flesh is
disturbed and broken : something gleams through
the chinks of the body from the enkindled soul.
A power of thought and language, the subtlest
reading of character, a knowledge of healing, an
apprehension where objects lost may be found,
and a certain pure and lofty morality, come with
this marvellous change of a moment. In its
highest form, it is called extase, and then the
most poetic suggestions, a power of foreseeing
events, and intercourse with spirits, long before
spiritualism had claimed this for itself, were
the marks of this condition. The voice will alter,
the words will be choice and intense in expres-
sion, and, at times, the whole face glow, especially
in young people, as with supernatural light.
The most interesting subjects of these phenom-
ena were simple people, lowly born, and without
that half-knowledge even which might help them ;
and, in the main, all over the world this strange
faculty resembled itself. It seemed to have the

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 95

same powers and the same limitations every-
where. It was a freemasonry beyond that of
any Lodge, and gave to all believers a feeling
of brotherhood.

Now it has never been adequately stated that
these somnambules everywhere recognized phre-
nology as true. Without knowing the first
word of it, they spoke like professors, and
pointed out all its subtleties in themselves and
others.

I have seen a young girl entranced, who, when
I touched the organs of ideality and language,
and commanded her to construct an acrostic
upon her name, toiled with moving lips till she
had successfully accomplished it. Upon waking,
and being told what she had done, she said she
could never make rhymes, but had had an
acrostic written upon her name, and forthwith
recited one, there being not a word in common
with the first. As the liveliest interest in mag 1 -

o

netism was felt, and phrenology was not the
lion of the hour, sufficient weight has not been
given to this additional proof of phrenology this
furnishes.

People who like to qualify every dangerous
novelty by reservations delight to say that
" they think there may be something in it," and

96 WINDFALLS.

that an ample forehead may denote intelligence ;
but they boggle at the small organs near -the
eye. They think these cannot be as genuine
as the big ones ; forgetting that a whole race of
creatures of genius, with multiform activities of
intelligence and will, namely, the insects, have
all their powers shut up, oftentimes in no vaster
a space than the head of a pin. If a bee can
regulate her stupendous commonwealth, and
mathematically hive her fragrant treasure, surely
mere material space is not necessary to hold the
most peerless ability.

Another objection commonly urged against
phrenology is, that it condemns us to a kind of
mechanical play of faculties, which are given at
birth and limited through life ; and that it takes
away responsibility. We do what we are driven
to do, and cannot help it. Whether this be true
or no, it overlooks the central mystery of the
will, and that the faculties as well as their out-
ward expression enlarge by use.

It has been noticed that the brain consists
of double organs ; and it has been suggested
of late that for complete development, both
sides of the brain should be consciously exer-
cised, as we strengthen by use the left arm as
well as the right. But how this is to be accom-

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 97

plished lias not as yet been indicated. The
fact of these double organs existing would per-
haps explain how injuries to one part of the
brain have not totally effaced its activity. The
uninjured side carries on its processes so that
sometimes little of intelligence is missed.

In relation to this duplexity of the organs, I
have a suggestion to make as to a well-known
phenomenon whose effects have been thought to
imply a pre-natal existence, and the source very
likely of the eastern idea of metempsychosis and
Plato's ; that we have previously existed. This
it may be which suggested the noble passage in
the ode to immortality, and the lines,

" Trailing clouds of glory do we come
From heaven, which is our home."

Many persons have felt as if a succession of
incidents, conversation, and actions, very brief
indeed, and mostly unimportant, had occurred
at some previous time. Every thing for a short
space seems identical with what we remember
vaguely as a previous experience. The expla-
nation I think to be this ; either some retarda-
tion of the circulation of the blood in the brain,
or the nervous fluid which animates it, causes

one half to be ever so little in its action behind
5 G

98 WINDFALLS.

the other. The mind, so to say, for once is
not achromatic ; the two parts are not simulta-
neous in their action. This would give a start-
ling remoteness to perceptions which are but
very slightly retarded. As this incident almost
never concerns acts or speech of any importance,
some such explanation seems natural.
The poetic expression,

" It almost seemed her body thought,"

has doubtless a certain truth in it. The brain
is repeated in the body somewhat, in the great
central ganglion. Somnambules often hold books
and letters to the pit of the stomach to discern
their contents, almost as readily as they hold
them to the head, and the ancients, as we know,
made each of the great bodily organs a seat of
influence. Affection was placed in the heart,
melancholy in the liver, &c. It is enough to
say that there is the subtlest sympathy between
the brain and the bodily organs. The tempera-
ment will be clouded, direction given to thought
and passion, as they are affected by good or
bad health.

If there be any truth in phrenolog} r , and as we
get familiar with the pigeon-hole receptacles of
thought and feeling, we naturally look in such

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 99

a masterpiece as man for something which
it may tell us of a divine harmony, an archi-
tectural symmetry in this dome of thought ;
which shall force us to think that the Deity
has not there worked at hap-hazard, but with
intelligent relations of beauty, symmetry, and
power. Let us see if there be not something
of this. A plumb-line dropped from the top of
the skull past the ear divides the brain into the
animal and domestic instincts, and the intellect-
ual, reasoning, poetical and artistic processes to
which man owes his royalty in creation. In
the great simplicity which is daily attained to
in investigating the compound elements of this
world, the discovery even that the planets share
with us, in the simple bases of their mixed ele-
ments, it is fit to state that wherever there is
mind there is precisely that same simplicity, that
something which we ourselves possess. While
instinct remains as the hidden command of
Deity in man, as well as animals, for self-pres-
ervation and guidance, the animals also share
with man those processes beyond instinct which
we call reasoning and intelligence. There is
but one kind of mind possible in the universe
for animals, as well as man, and those hierarchies
of angelic spirits which may be as far above us

100 WINDFALLS.

as is man's intelligence beyond that of a dog.
If the dog reasons he does it in the way that
man does ; if he has affection, sportiveness, and
remorse, they are like our own. This belief
which is daily growing, and the great Agassiz
held it, will in the future bring the animal
creation into closer regard and brotherhood with
us. If man can follow the circuit of the plan-
ets, calculate eclipses, estimate the materials of
distant worlds, his intelligence is of the same
order as the Deity's who fashioned the creation,
as we can somewhat understand. Such a cer-
tainty is the best help for hope that, in the world
beyond, with the creatures we may encounter,
man's mind will not be a foreigner, but at home.
The power of understanding things about us,
which has so enlarged since man's 'childhood
and the infancy of the race, may only here-
after be unfolded as it has been here, but with
fresh subjects for contemplation and to us
an unimaginable theme for its activity. Thus
human powers, if phrenology be true, should be
built up in the great arch which crowns that
sublime face of man, where the animals read
their master, with relations of symmetry and
beauty.

The combative and destroying instinct, per-

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 101

sistency in pursuit of an object, love of family
and offspring, as conspicuous in the animal
creation as in man, all have their place behind
this line which passes downward past the ear.
These instincts are blind, but imperative ; it
requires all man's selfishness and the invitations
of the intellect to deny them. The animals do
not, and they are innocent. The tiger which
tears its prey has its commission from on high,
as well as all those creatures, who, abdicating
self-indulgence, fulfil the duties of maternity
and care of their young. For in proportion to
his bulk man's brain is in evident excess over
those of the brute creation. It has been his good
or bad fortune to build from humble beginnings

that vast dome of power which makes him mas-

ter of the world. But with his gains may lie
not have lost much? He is now far removed
from the natural instincts which guide and

O

satisfy. His will is distracted by a thousand
appeals ; his nervous system is shaken and
suffers from the whirl of the mighty enginery
above. Whim, caprice, and insanity are the
penalties of his elevation above his fellow ani-
mals. They know them not ; but live content
within the secret boundaries of their instincts.
The joy of life is not simply the joy of thinking,

102 WINDFALLS.

the greatest geniuses are often the greatest
sufferers : an equilibrium between the health
of the body and the sanity of the mind is the
truest happiness.

Nor will the brain be content to moderate its
claims ; it cries ever for more nutriment, more
fuel, more knowledge. Does it not somewhat
seem that the blade may devour the scabbard,
and the race of men perish from off the face of
the earth through that very superiority which
makes them kings of it ? Apparently only the
wisest subjection to sanitary laws, the fullest
study of them, can offset the dangers of too much
brain, and save man's future. In our complex
civilization, we can hardly judge how innocent
in primeval man was the impulse to battle and
destruction ; when society, unformed, had not
bribed man to relinquish his instincts of self-
preservation.

In advance of the ear, at the base of the brain,
are placed a cunning to secure the food once so
difficult of attainment, and its relish. This is so
near the neighborhood of the intellectual faculties
as to explain the social cheer that so pleasantly
accompanies its indulgence, and with Bibative-
ness so makes glad the heart of man, giving to
the social table that sunshine which the solitary

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 103

meal of the prowler never knew. If the place of
this instinct be not correctly found, at least, ap-
parently, it should be there. This low belt to
which we must add Acquisitiveness, the instinct
of having and holding, on which society largely
is founded, and the animal region behind the
ears, is of that dumb blind sort which stimulates
the intelligence to fulfil its ends, though itself

O ' O

incapable of thought. Continuing in front the
belt of organs at the base of the brain wholly
round, we come to that tier in front with which
the senses and especially the eye are connected,
and in which, in some cases, the animal race has
an advantage over man where he needs it.
Here are the faculties of Weight, of Measure-
ment, of Form, and of Color, and at the angle of
the brow the simple sentiment of Order, or the
adjustment of things in their places. Language
is supposed to be expressed by a certain promi-
nence of the eye in its orbit, though, perhaps,
that is the most disputable of all the organs ;
for language would seem to be but the outlet,
through speech, of the aggregate accumulations
of the intelligence, subordinated to the glow of
fancy, and warmed by the affections. Locality,
or the sentiment of place, is in this tier. How
conspicuously it differs in individuals, whether

104 WINDFALLS.

ante-natal or developed by use, we can all re-
member. The dog has it, as do many animals,
and in the pointer it is often conspicuous.
Here, too, is Individuality, or the notice of par-
ticulars. This is conspicuous in heads of Dar-
win and Lyell. It accumulates facts.

Now, if there be any thing in Phrenology,
where should all these faculties be placed but
just here? It is the battery of power which
uses the eye, whether it be only the keen glance
of a creature which discerns its prey, or the
artistic outlook of a nature capable in this
world of following somewhat the Creator's plan
of beauty and order.

In the centre of the forehead, above these is
placed Eventuality, or the tendency to foresee,
to connect events, and to prepare for the future.
It deals directly with this world, and dreams
of no other, and is placed where it should be by
the law of symmetry. The great fulness in the
centre of the forehead, man's sovereign faculty,
the judgment, or " Causality," as it is poorly
called, holds the same commanding and regal
place as does the faculty in the mind of man.
This is the seat of contemplation, the place of
judgment and final decision of the mind. No
mind is great without it; and, unless it be

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 105

in the elephant, we scarcely find much token
of it in the brute creation. It is the throne
of thought ; to it are brought all the stores of
learning, the history of the world, the spoil
of science, for its final acceptance. It is the
judicial faculty par excellence. Immediately
above, at the angle where the forehead usually
retreats, is Comparison ; this, as it were, holds
the mighty scales before the judge.

Thus far, the faculties we have enumerated are
for the sustenance and continuation of the race,
and of the intellectual use of the senses, without
which life would be impossible to us, as to all
creatures else. But here, at Comparison, begin
curves which have no outlook directly into this
world, but use what the lower faculties have ob-
served and found, in a sportive and even sublime
way of their own. A little above Comparison,
to the right and left, is the faculty which en-
joys the juxtaposition of thoughts not matched
by Nature's order, but which it will match for
its own enjoyment. This is Wit ; not the mere
fun derived from accidental confusion and the
comic mishaps of life, but an intellectual critic
of this and all worlds. Its enjoyment is the
felicity of man's nature. Without it, and its
neighbor, a little nearer the top of the skull,
5*

106 WINDFALLS.

Hope, with no outlook forward, but a blind faith
in better things, man's life would be cheerless
indeed. The tragedy of its losses and failures,
would be more than he could contemplate with-
out anguish. These two make the sunshine of
the mind, and hapless indeed is his who is with-
out them.

Just at the curve of the forehead, behind com-
parison, where intelligence begins to melt into
the moral sentiments, a heavenly instinct is
found. Its law is the reversal of the law of
selfishness. It bids us not toil to get and hold
possessions, but to share with others the good
things of earth. Its reward is its indulgence.
Happy he who knows the lovely impulse of
Benevolence ! He is not acting from the earthly
side of his nature, but is anticipating the rela-
tion of spirits, and sharing with others, as here-
after they may with him. Though controlled
by that wise selfishness which makes self-pres-
ervation a paramount power, it delights in try-
ing to bridge over earthly inequalities ; and,
when it gives material help, send a cheer and
comfort into the heart of the recipient better
than alms ; thus, while it disfurnishes itself of
the values of earth, is enriched with that price-
less treasure to which all other possessions are
as dross.

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 107

In a broad belt on either side, with no forward
look, and yet, not like that of Reverence, with-
drawn from all observation of things about us,
is Ideality, the reconciling power which strives
to make life and the world more beautiful than
they are. This, in its lowest portion is Fancy,
a combination of gay and agreeable thoughts,
which, by the help of Comparison, can make ideas
flowery with metaphor, while its neighbor, Wit,
gives sparkle and brilliance to its play. A little
behind the angle of the eye, is the sentiment of
Harmony in music. This, too, has no direct out-
look into the world : it has a side-place, and
speaks a language of its own : but it draws
material from life, its tragedies and its passions ;
it gives them to us in their essence, or can, bor-
rowing from the lofty region above it, thunder
or plead, in harmony with the loftier moods of
the mind, the promises of hope or the sublime
intuitions of that reverential sentiment which
finds in it its fittest expression.

Above all these, at the top of the brain, but
still well in advance of the ear, is the sentiment
of Reverence. It faces the sky, and does not
feed itself by notice of the things of earth. It
is an intimation of something beyond ourselves
and the scene we live in, and can never formu-

108 WINDFALLS.

larize itself in unassailed statement ; for it deals
simply with the infinities of man's soul, and
the Creator who gave it to him. How vainly
does Mr. Buckle ask that it should share the
conquering march of man's intelligence, when
its home is far away from the paths of labor,
with only Faith for its guide, while in speechless
trust, it contemplates the heaven above it !

We have omitted to speak of an organ high
up in the intellectual region among the idealities,
and a little on one side of the head, called Imi-
tation. This is the instinct which pushes the
actor and the artist to a delight which no other
organ could furnish. Its province is the world
and man ; whether looked at as the victim of
tragedy, or the sharer in comedy: and the art-
ist, while considering man in both these as-
pects, has the whole outward world for his field.
It impels him to study the method of Nature,
the different expressions of landscape, all its de-
tails and the whole seen through aerial perspec-
tive, till the horizon is but a blue line. This
faculty makes itself felt in poetry and even
in manners. When a person has it in excess,
united with self-esteem, his friends find him
" affected ; ' he lives the life of an actor, in
every-day life, and poses unconsciously. Man's

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. 109

architecture, through its action, has always bor-
rowed from Nature hints and suggestions. The
old story of the basket, in Greece, through which
the acanthus wound itself and thus gave to us
the Corinthian order, but stands for what man
has done in the architecture of every country.
Its exercise is a pure delight; and though the
world gratefully rewards the clever mimic, the
noble actor, or the glorious artist, the impulse,
independent of greed, finds itself best rewarded
by those plaudits which are to it better than
money. For, while it may caricature life, as
well as ennoble its sorrows, it is a purely in-
tellectual organ, and the world has alwa} r s so
understood it.

A line from the ear issuing at the skull's
crown marks the home of that aplomb of char-
acter, that downrightness which, as its place is
not that of an intellectual faculty, expresses
itself as Firmness and even Obstinacy which
often no persuasion, no argument, can shake.
Behind this, just where the head slopes back-
ward resides the sentiment of Selfhood, Self-
esteem, Egotism. Round this all the faculties
should cluster in wise selfishness, which, aiming
at happiness, does not disregard that of others.
In the greatest minds, self-esteem is modified by

110 WINDFALLS.

a philosophic sense of man's short-coming, and
the mystery of a universe he cannot fathom.
It has, on either side, for direction and guid-
ance, as rudders which should direct its move-
ment always, Conscientiousness. Any one may
see that this heavenly guide can only have its
place as near as possible to the sentiment of
Self. Without its sheltering wings, its forward
pointing finger, man would drift, aimless, among
his passions, or be driven hither and thither by
each invitation of pleasure or whim. With a
nature so incomplete and imperfect as ours,
this eternal claimant for perfection, but too
often ineffectually, makes its voice heard for
guidance ; and in its tones we recognize the
sad wail of contrition and remorse.

In this slight sketch of our phrenological
faculties, we have endeavored to show, very
feebly indeed, that the place claimed for them
is no mere pigeon-hole receptacle which chance
gives. We have tried to show a symmetry, a
harmony, through all ; how each balances the
other ; how complex, without disorder, are the
forces appointed for us to use ; and how, in-
deed, a certain sublime beauty hovers about
the architecture or the making up of our multi-
form being. On reviewing the Avhole, we seem

A PLEA FOR PHRENOLOGY. Ill

satisfied with a content which does not wholly
come from fhidino; the mere relation of fact, in

O

the home of our powers, with observations made
from nature ; but we seem to behold a flower-
like loveliness of relation, a harmony which may
well be the ideal after which a God may work.
That there may be other faculties, other pow-
ers in higher orders of being elsewhere, is very
possible ; but the intellectual and moral facul-
ties, at least, must be there. And as these
powers adjust themselves so nobly to the grand
theatre upon which they are appointed to act,
and as this world is day by day more and more
understood to share in its elements and even in
its conditions of being with the worlds around
us, this cluster of faculties may well give man
a confidence that he may be a freeman of the
heavenly city, at home and no stranger in any
of the countless globes about him.

This mind, these powers, are hindered, as
well as nourished, by the limiting environment
of the body. Ill-health and a thousand acci-
dents modify or defeat their perfection. The
body is but their servant, a clog to their swift
and bird-like activity. Easily do we imagine
them, under material conditions more akin to
their spiritual nature, blooming out into a

112 WINDFALLS.

happiness and beauty which has always been
the dream of the elect. Without the lungs
which we need to breathe our heavy air, with-
out that fatalite du venire, the daily necessity
of supplying the celestial lamp with the oil
earth furnishes, without the pitiful limitations
to movement which our poor limbs demand,
the translated spirit may then exist. Man has
always imagined something angelic, bird-like,
superior to the delays of matter as we know it,
and fed, as is the Medusa from the sea, by the
direct infiltration of Divine love. Such a crea-
ture, buoyant, brilliant, and moving with the
swiftness of thought, may yet find his faculties,
enlarged, yet the same, and fit for the compan-
ionship of the Heavenly Host, his brothers of the
skies.

THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW. 113

IV.

THKEE MONTHS EST THE SHADOW.

~"\EATH must certainly be a catastrophe, but
not so great a one probably as fear sug-
gests. We may know nothing about it : as sleep
shuts softly behind us its muffled doors, so may
life. The mystery of sleep but refreshes body
and soul with a new strength. And not only
may the eternal morning come to us with dewy
freshness, but its spiritual sun, whose sunshine
is happiness, must make both the life of earth
and death, something subterranean, dark, im-
possible to remember.

Our spiritual gossips, of the pine table, tell us
that the transition was so easy that they gen-
erally did not find it out till after it had hap-
pened. They went on thinking and acting
as if in this world, as Captain Munchausen's
horse went on drinking after he had lost the
backward half of his body. As Nature does not
love shocks, and does all without violence, it is
more than probable that it is our imagination
only which pictures for us death as a terrible

114 WINDFALLS.

catastrophe. Yet it is the event of events. How
it shall then be with us is the only substantially
interesting question that the soul can ask. That
it should ask it here often of the listening spirit,
amid the perplexities and sins which follow life
as shadow follows the sun, is best for us. That
the disquietude which mingles with the answer
should be lost in the peace which comes through
righteousness is best of all.

But there are events infinitely less important
than death which may bring us near the cold-
ness of its shadow. They are as many as are
the possibilities of human misfortune. They
alwa} r s stun and sober us. They remind us
that we are mortal. Loss of fortune and friends,
loss of health or good repute, lead off the long
file of these foes of man's earthly happiness,
and unmask so often to show they were angels
in disguise.

There are accidents which are not catastro-
phes, trifling or important, from the cut finger
to the loss of a limb. Of the graver accidents
one does not care to speak. But of one, how-
ever grave, which carries with it assurance of a
full recovery we may even like to talk. We
play with our enemy and taunt him as he retreats.
Though he pressed us to the earth with ease,

THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW. 115

when we are again ourselves we like to think
we made a good fight, that we held and shook
him at arm's length, though, really, when he met
us, we were less than nothing in his terrible
hands.

Was it to make our last experience of activity
pleasant, or the love of contrast, which made
fate jump on us so unexpectedly? Was the din-
ner too good, the conversation too cheerful, that
last thread of talk which Atropos with shears
cut short, too dear? So it was. When Boston is
sheathed in ice, and up and down its steep hills,
without insurance, a walk is a criminal pleasure,
then it was on the edge of an ice-clad curbstone,
curved and polished like the rail of a stair-land-
ing, out of digestion's dreamland up went one
foot skyward, inviting the other to follow, which
it gladly would have done but that it was im-
prisoned by the curbstone.

As a tooth is pulled out with a wrench, so
that belated leg was extracted. And as the
dentist drops on the floor a molar which a little
while before was priceless and now is naught,
so did cruel Fate drop that hurt life upon the
sidewalk. Here was a chance for philosophy.
It instantly took advantage of it, and began the
contemplation from the point of view of that

116 WINDFALLS.

second party, the alter ego, which, makes a man
actor and critic at the same time.

The city, viewed from the level of a sidewalk,
put on a new aspect, when made suddenly con-
scious of what a shining deception it is. The
arms were extended, as it were around the globe,
in the effort to hold on. How high the houses
looked! and the light in friendly rooms, how
mocking and unattainable I The other side of
the street mostly disappeared. A fine line of
Alpine crests, which night could not darken, rose
between. It was well that to lie there in a
warm cloak, with no desire to discover the worst,
left that second party so much of a philosopher.
It seemed like an incident of a novel by Alex-
andre Dumas, where the hero, thrust through
and through by a rapier, comfortably waits for
the opening of the next chapter.

That opening soon came, heralded by tinkling
bells and in the person of Boston's blessed
Booby ; two of them on the outside. The world
knows no such ambulance, as the low-stooping
motherly arms of Boston's darling ; and so home
was reached by a not too impatient cripple.

People do like to hear about the mishaps of
their neighbors. A Rochefoucault can be found
in the corner of many a one's mind who loves

THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW. 117

us dearly. And an accident is not without its
charm. It is like seeing a man fall in the ranks
at our side. How do we know the ball was not
meant for us ? Why, simply because it hit him,
and so we feel let off once more. In England,
insanity is considered a disgrace. A family is
too proud to let the world peep in and mock it
with pity. If one sort of pity is akin to love,
certainly such a one is akin, to hate. Whoever
heard of taking a skeleton out of the closet and
putting it over the front-door ? Not only pride
forbids it, but the neighbors would be hurt, for
they mean to do their own peeking. They do
not wish frankly to have the game come and
surrender, for they love the excitement of the
chase. Wherefore, it is pleasant to know that
this avowal of misfortune is not written in such
shameful fulness by the sufferer, but by that sec-
ond party who overlooks and sometimes takes
notes Avithout his friend's knowing it. That
friend would be ashamed of such a revelation.
He knows that a wounded animal leaves the
herd to die ; and that Nature - - its passions and
its woes do need a veil.

When a house, no longer a nest from which
we take flight every morning, becomes a prison,
it is important that our prison should be com-

118 WINDFALLS.

fortable ; for it is then the only world we have.
If it should have three long rooms through
which the air from a lifted window draws not
too harshly, if the bits of straw and earth with
which we have plastered our nest should be a
satisfaction to us, it were well. If, instead of
bare prison walls and the deformities of fashion,
we get a glimpse outside of nature and beauty
through little canvases into which some master-
hand has distilled the essence of both these, it
were still better ; and if within, the eye can
fall upon pretty objects from remote places, re-
minding us of happy days of toilsome travel
and the enjoyment of liberty, it were best of all.
Every thing is relative. One can be as mis-
erable as a miser with all the world can offer.
Bruce, Picciola, and Bonnivard teach us how
to make the most of what is left when all but
a patient spirit and life are gone. As our hori-
zon narrows, we learn to value but the more
what it encloses. And there is the pleasure
of endurance : to feel that something presses
against us which we resist. Sickness, poverty,
imprisonment, may each prove an angel with
whom we may wrestle through the long hours
of the night, and morning shall find us but
stronger for the contest. There is something

THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW. 119

medicinal in the touch of the cold hand of
Calamity. It is a tonic for self-indulgence.
Desire diffused through the sunshine of too
much pleasure exhales as does cologne from an
open vial. Unrest runs by his side who searches
too fast, and too far, for happiness. Satiety
drugs excess with stupor. But calamity teaches
us the content which these cannot. The anxiety
of choice is calmed where no choice is possible.
Peace may sit beside the bedside where Pain is
no unfrequent visitor. As we lie inert and
helpless upon the bed, the very touch of whose
covering thrills us with distress, we teach our
nerves a quietude, which is to them a useful
lesson. This king of creation, once so proud of
his strength, so eager with tumultuous prefer-
ences, exchanges his royalty for the weakness
and docility of a little child. He lies as he did
at his birth upon the knees of Nature, and looks
up to her, pleading for her nursing care and
motherly regard.

He and the world have now so changed their
relations to each other that it takes time to
adjust them and accept the new situation. At
first he is stunned, discouraged, and misses
the old personality. He, the proud ship which
crashed the billows as they came, is now a

120 WINDFALLS.

stranded hulk, with torn rigging and broken
spars. About the immovable bulk, the tide
ripples in slender lines, while far out at sea it
beholds the sunshine on clouds of canvas as the
mighty creatures come and disappear. The
great life goes on about it ; but it shares it not.
It is caught in the silent sands, the soft pro-
tection of an uneventful beach. If it were only
a wreck for the winds and waves to shatter, if
it were to bleach there till the last rope parted,
the last plank gave way, it would be sad indeed.
But hope survives with a consciousness of re-
generating powers, a life behind the momentary
death. These are comforts and consolers.

The world swims before dying eyes, and there
are maladies which make the face turn toward
the shining beyond death's black portals. Life
and the world, then are as friends to whom we
prepare to say farewell. As the silver cord
loosens, so does our hold upon the things and
purposes we grasped most closely.

But where there is no sickness, but only an
injury which time and care will medicate, the
outlook is wholly different. The alter ego feels
his ties to things relax, but he does not wholly
drop his hold. He is sequestrated, but not
banished. His order of release shall come, and

THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW. 121

not that of execution. And so he watches his
fellow-men, their busy ways and the onward
march of his nation, as one who may yet stand
in the ranks. He remembers that,

" They also serve who only stand and wait."

And, if he be only for a while a looker-on, it is
with impatient interest that he is so.

Thus, though he does not abdicate his fellow-
ship with humanity, he sees all things from the
level of his low-lying pallet and his chastened
pulses. For a long time he lies there, the slave
of immobility and silence. His spirit has no
wings, but droops wounded and irresolute. The
earth withdraws ; for the senses which gave
him intercourse with it have receded to gain
strength. Hope hovers unseen,. for the mind's
eye cannot see so far. Longing and confidence
are born of the body's strength, and as yet it is
too weak to animate him. He sees things as in
a vision. And he thinks himself somewhat a
disembodied spirit. Personality which made
him what he was, and passion which gave im-
pulse and ardor to his choice, fade to a thinness
in which they are lost. But the mind, active as
ever, demands its nourishment, and finds it in
beautiful memories of the past, speculations
concerning the soul and its destiny, and obser-
6

122 WINDFALLS.

vations of the little rworld within its reach. His
calamity makes for him an impartiality which
the fever of life disturbed. He gets to look at
things as they are, or as he now thinks they are,
unmingled with himself. His body placed itself
between them and the sun of truth, darkening
their clearness and projecting falsifying shad-
ows. This impartiality comes to the sick and
dying as the measure of their mistakes ; and its
sacred revelations belong to hours which may
almost be considered the first of the life to come.

But his impartiality is but an incomplete
disillusion as to the treasures which man values.
It is the judgment rather which holds the scales,
and not the soul. There is a glimpse of eternal
verities, after which it cannot return to a dis-
tasteful world and again bear its part in the
busy hive of men. But his is the happy pause
which brings the careening vessel to an even
keel, the mark of a new departure, the clarity
of reason, the illumination of conscience.

The motive forces of both mind and body are
quiet and unruffled by life's gales : all things
become mirrored truly in its central calm.

How different things look in perspective if
the point of sight be changed ! Did you ever
drive through a familiar street from the high

THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW. 123

perch of a stage box, when before you knew
it only from the lower level of the sidewalk ?
You hardly recognize your own town, your own
Washington street. And so, from the level of
the floor, Boston has a new look for us. Meas-
ured by our inertia, how they flit about the
streets ! with what prodigality of gesture, and
strides which to a lame man are criminally care-
less ! The whole city seems in a ferment. It is
all twisting and turning like a bag full of eels.
What is it all about ? And is the city again on
fire ? Who dares to call Boston a sober, dull
town? The young people I see are ever coin-
ing and going. They never get enough of
pleasure. Dinners and concerts and balls and
Art shows, and Moody and Sankey to top off
with ! Hurry, hurry, for the season is soon
over, and of all these jollities none will be left.
And where do they all go to? As sings
Hans Breitmann,

" Last night I gave a barty,
Vere is dat barty now ? "

Recorded, ticketed, photographed, somewhere,
no doubt. There they will count for something;
but here these costly and fatiguing satisfac-
tions pass us by, like wind blowing through the
hair. And from our low pallet how passionless

124 WINDFALLS.

look the intrigues of contending nations, how
dull the roll of Sclavonic drums, when one is not
even " a looker-on in Vienna." And what a book
to read now is Lanfrey's Napoleon ! Can it be
any thing but a crazy world or a crazy Gover-
nor which commits to such selfishness as Napo-
leon's all that it values ?

Because of that poor trick of military genius
he had, a knack in that great game where men
are ninepins, that moral coward, that measure-
less liar, was for a while as a God upon earth.
He was the cleverest and the wickedest man
in his army. He not only possessed no true
nobleness, no love of goodness, no tenderness,
no friendship, but his iron soul ploughed them
out as they stood in his way. And of this rage
for criminality, this fanaticism of destruction,
what was the moving power ? Could he have
told himself? A colossal greed, a love of that
glory which holds but a lying trumpet, and is
but a vapor of the brain ? No : for all his per-
sonality, he was impersonal ; an instrument in
the hand of a power better and wiser than he
knew.

The newspapers, as the days and nights melt
into each other, what a log they keep of swift-
running time ! they pelt each other like the

THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW. 1-5

flakes in a snow-storm. What a mirror are
they of the planet ! What an instantaneous
photograph, which fixes all its busy crowds, as
the procession of living things passes before
the eye ! How proud are we if we discover any
thought, any words of ours, moving with the
rest ! How we think the editor who inserts our
article does not consider us quite dead yet !
Our vanity is pleased that we still count among
the living for so much.

It is worth while to be ill or injured by a fall
if only to find out how kind the world is. Just
as our gayety is eclipsed and we are taught hu-
mility by the check we receive, just then, when
we need it most, this kindness shows itself with
delightful unexpectedness. We count for so
little in our own eyes, it seemed but natural
that our friends should forget us. But here
they come, and not once only, with their hearts
full of sympathy and their hands full of gifts.
They cover our wounds with flowers^ and heal
our hurts with the balm of their kindness. If
we liked them before, we love them now.
These handsome, fashionable women, leaving for
a sick-bed their pleasant occupations, touches us
with a gratitude which we shall not forget.
How tall and stately they look, wearing their

126 WINDFALLS.

beautiful dresses, which iu our disrobed condi-
tion we notice as never before ! And the friend
who snatches from business his half-hour to
cheer us with news of himself, or the gossip of
the town, shall we not remember his thought-
ful friendship, his considerate attention, where
neglect were so easy ?

All these proofs that it is a good world we
live in ; that our fellow-creatures have not the
cold hearts the cynics have told us ; that the
most occupied life can go beyond itself to re-
member a stricken deer, come at a time when
we need them most.

To die among one's kindred has been a long-
ing of man from the first. To be ill and suffer
among one's kindred is equally a longing of the
spirit ; for it establishes, where most we have a
right to claim it, the bond of a common human-
ity. But to die among strangers, to see the
cooling draught never held if held at all but
in a mercenary hand, adds an anguish to the
solemn hour indeed hard to bear. To hear no
words of sympathy, to see no eye which looks
pity and compassion, gives a sting to the loneli-
ness of disease which our weakened nature can-
iiot endure.

I remember a funeral at Rome which had an

THREE MONTHS IN THE SHADOW. 127

indescribable sadness. It was the funeral of an
unknown American whom none of those who
attended it because he was a countryman, had
ever seen. And as we stood there in Rome's
beautiful Protestant burying-place with un-
covered heads, the melancholy wind blowing
through our hair, while the son of England's
great moral poet read the touching, solemn
service for the dead, we felt the pathos en-
hanced by an ignorance who it was for whom
these last rites were rendered. A negro servant
stood in tears beside the grave. He only knew
his master's na*me, and that he came from New
York. But the bond of a common country, a
common humanity, lent sufficient dignity to
that lonely death to disarm it of something of
its poignancy. " Bury me among my people,"
whispered every heart as we silently withdrew.
But the hours of convalescence, how delight-
ful are they ! As the sun mounts in the heaven
with the rejoicing of spring-time, and the grass
visibly deepens its green, hope within us soars
as the birds do, and our desolation clothes itself
with verdure that shall not long wait for flowers.
And see, they are already beside us. These May-
flowers, which are a token and a pledge of the
coming happiness, how lovely are they in their sil-

128 WINDFALLS.

ver, tipped with rose ! And how their fragrance
breathes of the open field, of the unchained
music of the dimpling brooks, and the warm
sunshine which lies on the hill and meadow !

Spring is the only time one should recover
in from any hurt or sickness. We and it then
both move together, nor feel as in the chill, nar-
row days of winter our elasticity and gaining
strength repressed by the season's inclemency.
For if spring come to all as a boon and a bless-
ing, how doubly so is it to him who has been
exiled from the blithe air and the curative ten-
derness of the young sunshine ! And when at
last, with faltering steps, we leave our prison
behind us, and in the morning's glow sit or stand
amid the happy groups, how intoxicating is the
open day, what a bath of bliss to our weary
frame is the dazzling atmosphere ! And they
seem borrowed from spring's sunshine, the
smiles of welcome of passing friends, and blood-
warm the hands which tenderly touch our own
in congratulation. We are again among our
fellows and at the year's best hour. May we all
of us, having known the hours of shadow, discover
ere long the joy of convalescence, with friends
about us, with birds to cheer us, and the season's
invitation gladdening our recovered strength.

THE LOOM OF THE EAST. 129

V.

THE LOOM OF THE EAST.
{Read before the Bric-a-Brac Club, January 17, 1877.)

'"T^HIS evening I am to speak to the Club a few
words upon Textile Materials. For that
is the name given to all stuffs wrought by the
loom. I would naturally rather speak of these
artistically than learnedly, but a few facts are
well enough for us all to know. The stuffs
by me here are Oriental, and of these only I
shall speak. These rugs, sombre with sup-
pressed fire, why do they so impress us ? It is
that they hint of a dim past, a struggle for life
through many experiments in pattern and color,
and for their rich suggestion rather than exact
statement. The date of the first carpet is not
known, but they are mentioned in the earliest
writings. In the East they do not overlie
wooden floors as with us, but floors of stone, to
which they are not fitted, but upon which they
are placed. The Orientals do not make much of
paintings. Their walls are not hung with them.
For them their beautiful carpet is picture
6* i

130 WINDFALLS.

enough. Not that they try to make one of it,
of landscape and animals, as sometimes the
moderns have done, for some of us have seen a
lion roaring before the fender, and upon whom
we could harmlessly place our feet. Yet there
are accounts of early work representing deer in
a forest and the like, but now the Orientals
always recognize the purpose the rug serves, and
nothing but what may be a flat is represented.
Variations upon lines and colors practically are
not infinite. Long ago their favorite patterns
were found, and the survivor of the fittest
became the rule here as elsewhere. The jew-
elled lattice-work of Persia, the knotted line
doing and undoing itself, the suggestion of
flowers rather than their representation, a hint
here and there of an animal, a bird, but nothing
more, and all set upon a ground dark and
neutral to give relief and value, is the art of
the Oriental. For a pure color, so placed, so
contrasted, will burn like a jewel, when a
wider surface wearies the eye. Color is dealt
to us by the Oriental artist as something pre-
cious. He gives us a drop to taste : he never
drenches us with it. This homoeopathic prin-
ciple of suppression, a low tone sought, with
here and there a sparkle of color, and the

THE LOOM OF THE EAST. 131

kindred one, suggestion, rather than representa-
tion of form ; and one other point of good art,
which we find the more, the farther we go back,
namely, correspondence without identity ; parts
which seem to match, but where a difference is
preserved : these form the basis of the merit of
Oriental art. The learned consider Persia to
have been the point of departure of the art of
weaving carpets, for in India the same patterns
are found with a greater resemblance as they
approach that country's borders. But even the
finest Persian carpets seem made of worsteds,
while the best of Indian ones are made of silk.
At "Worungal, Rungpore, and Sasseram, there
are wrought carpets of cotton ; but those of
Ahmedabad, though cotton, have printed not
woven patterns*

But it is not my affair to give you facts as to
the methods of weaving of any stuffs, or the
details or dates of any manufacture. Enough
for us to bow reverently before the genius of
that East, our parent in so much, and to enjoy,
without trying to analyze too carefully, the
method of its charm and beauty. We can see
there, through fancy's help, the dusky mother of
our race sitting silent before her loom ; and
coming down the ages, past the majestic Bible

WINDFALLS.

figures so occupied, we glance at Andromache
and Helen, many an English and French queen,
all deriving their pleasant labor from a Persian
brain, till finally we witness the last tribute to
Persia's invention in its acceptance and repro-
duction in so many modern carpets at our own
Centennial.

We have here precious fragments of the
Alhambra. These veined lines, cut in the
surface, show the march of the Orient alone the

O

Mediterranean's border until it leaped into Spain.
These lime-stone blocks, with their symmetri-
cal web of lines, painted, not cut on the surface,
and then covered with a glaze, the East dis-
covered ; this makes the Damascus tile which is
so famous to this day. The hall has a double
line of these tiles two hundred years old. This
Damascus art was the foundation of Majolica
and all the Italian faience. Moving along the
African shore with the armies of Mahomet, it
sprang to Majorca and elsewhere ; but it got its
name Majolica from that island. Italy then
abounded in men of genius, who delighted to
use this new material as a vehicle for it. How
beautiful their work was, Signor Castellani has
shown us at Philadelphia.

Cut-work, which was the old name for patch-

THE LOOM OF THE EAST. 133

work, is the technical title for pieces united, bit
by bit, to make a symmetrical whole ; and the
use of it, as here for bed-quilts, goes well back
in the past. This Herzegovinian work is em-
broidery for bed-quilts ; and we can imagine, if
we choose, the quilting bee of New England out-
lining an Asian hillside, which has the merry
chatter of Connecticut, tempered there by the
gravity of a life which has so little to communi-
cate.

Here are Damascus silks woven with gold and
silver. In the East the value of personal im-
portance is enhanced by richness of dress.
There they do not as here try to prove all men
are born free and equal by shutting them up in
an equality of dull colors. They would scarcely
be excited to delight at beholding a group of
our gentlemen at an evening party. Their
mournful black would seem meant rather to
discourage than enhance social gayety. Fortu-
nate in their barbarism, they retain at least
something of the joy of the natural animal ;
while we, believing in brain and all the penal-
ties it brings, studiously abandoning the source
of our instincts, will soon present that faded
figure, the " Coming man," and his great grand-
mother, the gorilla, will not then recognize her

134 WINDFALLS.

offspring. But the past is splendid in gold and
purple.

The psalmist says that " the daughter of
Pharaoh's raiment was of wrought gold," and
" for Aaron sacred vestments were made, an
ephod of gold, violet and purple, and scarlet
twice dyed." When the soft Darius went to bat-
'tle, the "waist part of the royal purple tunic was
wove in white, and upon his mantle of cloth of
gold were figured two golden hawks, as if peck-
ing at one another with their beaks." From
that Damascus, where still lingers this fading
splendor, as of a belated dawn, thousands of
those gentlemen who came out from that city
to meet Alexander's victorious general, Parmenio,
wore robes splendid with gold and purple. An
Indian king, visiting Alexander with his two
sons, was so clad. Nature permits such extrav-
agance in countries where she leads off. Her
pheasant there, like an Indian king, moves in
an attire of gold and silver. Later, even the
martyrs disdained not such earthly glory. St.
Cecilia was found by the pontiff in her arched
niche of the catacomb, which we have many of
us seen, dressed in a garment wrought all of
gold ; for she was a high-born lady. Cousin to
her namesake, Cecilia Metella, whose round, for-

THE LOOM OF THE EAST. 135

tress-like tomb almost gazes down upon her
grave, apparently St. Cecilia, from her share of
the family estate, could privately admit her
Christian friends to worship in the catacomb
without espial by their enemies. To under-
stand this profuse use of gold in early days, *we
must remember it was like California now, so
abundant that the supply seemed endless. Only
thus can we understand, that whole statues
of it were given in offering in Grecian tem-
ples ; and how complacently Solomon refers to
the gold plating of his temple. Ophir had
enriched him and given to his race that taste
so pleasant to their nerves, that they have
quested for it ever since. Fortunately, at first
that gold knew not of alloy. It was thus imper-
ishable in its purity ; for in the last; astonishing
collection of General di Chesnola on whose ac-
quisition by us, I congratulate you from the
treasure house at Kurium, the silver ornaments
were found partially oxidized, while the gold
was perfect. And Schlieman's recent discov-
eries, at Mycenae, of the tombs, perhaps even of
Agamemnon and his family, are the latest and
best proof of this. We read of gold cups and
bowls, and even the heavy handles of swords, of
that metal uninjured by time.

136 WINDFALLS.

At first the gold for weaving was cut in long
flat strips. It was not till later that it was
found, by folding it could be made round.
Though usually wrought with silk, dresses all
of gold were afterwards made. Its ductility
allowed of the finest wire. Tombs of the mid-
dle ages, all over Christendom, showed lying
fresh, untarnished, where all mortal remains
had perished, strips from this rich gold work
of theirs. The eastern end of the Mediterra-
nean was the head-quarters of all this fine work
in silk and gold. Patterns, imitated to deceive
from Persia, would place the cross beside Per-
sia's sacred pine, and be thus detected. Chris-
tendom here and there attempted an imitation
with success, but Cyprus gold had that eastern
flavor which we still recognize now and enjoy,
as they did. Cyclatoun and Baudekin, the names
of ancient stuffs, have a rich sound : Baudekin
still survives in Baldichino. But the fancy is
most taken with the old name for that stuff of
silk and gold, which gleams with such soft
lustre in the " Idyls of the King." Samite,
" clothed all in samite ; " this seems the risrht web

o

in which to drape those shining, elusory figures
of the morning prime of England's history.
One would think the Eastern man had in-

THE LOOM OF THE EAST. 137

vented the kaleidoscope, for its movable, ever-
varying harmonies of transparent color seem to
belong to him. But, after all, it was only a
Scotchman, Sir David Brewster, who did. This
Orient, whence we all came, seems to be redis-
covered from time to time. Though for a long
time ladies, up and down Christendom, had
been seen with the shawls of Cashmere sloping
from their shoulders, yet at the earlier English
and French Expositions the full beauty of East-
ern work was for the first time apprehended.
At first it was a wonder : a salutation followed ;
this ended in desire. Not the shawl now suf-
fices, but every house must enrich itself with
the woven jewelry of Persia, or India, and, later
still, swarm with the intelligent fantasy of Japan.
The give and take of life is now at its highest.
That unsupplied corner of our minds which
Japan is fit to fill, has waited as long as it has
for what we can furnish Japan. And such are
the attaching felicities of their art, that every-
body talks Eastern rug, Japanese lacquer, and
the poor Cashmere shawl of our grandmothers is
forgotten.

Books have been written of this marvellous
island, with its snow-crested volcano ; and sharp,
eager faces under Parisian bonnets might have

138 WINDFALLS.

been seen lately at Philadelphia striving to
strike a spark with their flint from the impas-
sive faces of the Mikado's subjects or the citron-
colored citizens of the floweiy land. For a new
sensation in the world is priceless. The genius
who can furnish it now shall be well regarded
by bank-clerks, and with the people which pro-
vides it will we make treaties as with the most
favored nation.

One can see Horace Walpole, whose Dresden
china soul had all the cold glitter of porcelain,
amorously inspecting a Chinese maggot. He
preached the new sensation of his time. Japan
was unknown, and the carpet of Aladdin might
have visited the Princess of China, but did not
much descend from the skies upon the expec-
tant West. The Expositions of London and
Paris were needed to diffuse these seeds of de-
sire for Oriental art, which a readier intercourse
than of old could indulge. In nothing are the
fine lines of Shakspeare truer,

" A substitute shines brightly as a king,
Until a king be by."

and when the splendid Persian textiles appeared,
Europe soon learned to bow as before a king.
The absurd patterns of English and French car-
pets, with small recognition of the purpose for

THE LOOM OF THE EAST. 189

which they were made, or the space they were
to occupy ; with crude splashes of color, or ab-
surdly naive imitations of natural objects,
blushed, ashamed of themselves ; and at our late
show nothing was more striking than our submis-
sion to the wand of the Eastern magician, the
adoration of Persia or Hindostan to be found
in the patterns of European and American car-
pets. As to porcelain and pottery, all dishes
and cups now posture and try to pass for natives
of Japan. The artist of Worcester or Etruria
is forced by the power of fashion to caper and
wind after the manner of those islanders.

We gain by this contact, this fresh sensation,
this subtle, capricious newness of Japan ; but we
think they must lose by touching us, and they
will. The genuineness, the native elan, which
furnished their art, will suffer, watered by our
commonplaces. They may even imitate some
second-rate mistakes of our own, so great a
charm 'has novelty. But we with difficulty do
justice to the passionate longing of a superior
race, imprisoned in its solitary seas, with minds
like fountains equal to rising to the mountain
level of any spring of thought, when discovering
our world of science and knowledge. And they
may throw away as baubles the too familiar

140 WINDFALLS.

things of home, in the eagerness to gratify this
longing from our overflowing supplies.

When we think of a child of the Mikado
working the wire of the telegraph, or construct-
ing a steamer, we have a glimpse of a possibly
near millennium. As a friend of ours said to
his neighbor, a Russian, at one of the splendid
tables d'hote by Lake Leman, where lions were
lying down with lambs to the right and left, and
every nation of Europe was represented, " How
do you know but we are living in the millen-
nium without knowing it ? '

Without attempting to fathom the grotesque
art of China, or its saner sister of Japan, let us
look at the rug of India, and see if it can tell us
any thing. We will take the rug as a brick
from the Babylon of their fancy, one thing to
stand for all. There are rugs from various
cities of India : the Caucasus sends its rug, the
Himalaya another, and we can walk on carpets
all the way to the Bosphorus, where, on- seeing
the rug offered to our feet by Turkey, we notice
cheapness and vulgarity of form and color as if
the magic of the East were fading before the
prosier daylight of Western life.

But in all those Eastern rugs there is the
charrn of that magic. There is a tangle, an

THE LOOM OF THE EAST. 141

intricacy of lines and tints, which lead on the
fancy. If the form of a known object is at-
tempted, it is carefully half blotted out. We see
something struggling up which we do not ex-
haust and set aside as known, but we muse, as
over the forms in crumbling embers, on touches of
smouldering fire, here and there a coil of flowers,
and lattices and garden borders, where the eye
wanders without satiety. The restraint in use
of colors as well as their harmony, the tempered
minor key of their splendor, is something better
to live with than the me voild f of Kidderminster
or more aristocratic Wilton. On looking long
and lovingly at these rugs, of which we get so
fond, we question them for their secret. Some-
thing is whispered there by that Arachne of the
mind which wove these tissues, alien to our brain.
Their evident good taste as to garishness may
lead us at first to overvalue them. But behind,
is left that which at once we recognize as gen-
uine, a natural, not an artificial, growth.

The East, old as it is, yes, the oldest of coun-
tries, is yet barbaric, if we take the pale deco-
rum of Christendom for civilization. With great
skill, after many efforts, we have succeeded in
nearly killing the natural man in us. Conven-
tionality, generations of artificial livers, have

142 WINDFALLS.

taken the color out of Anglo-Saxon life. The
savage in us is so overlaid with broadcloth,
studiously cheerless, that the natural skin is not
only not seen, but when seen has nothing of the
delightful health of the fellah's or the Nubian's.
We have missed our maternal monkey, and have
not yet reached the angelhood for which we
pine. Falling between these two, with only
illusory dreams to feed us, with no root in life
as has the natural man, we wander on ever
farther from the bliss of the simple instincts,
clutching bank-notes and brick houses, any straw
to stay us, while the man that nature meant is
drowning.

The East may be as effete as we are, or more
so ; but she keeps the tradition of her better time.
Haroun al Raschid is hinted at in these beau-
tiful works, and his successors have not for-
gotten the trick of the ancient charm. For as
we think of him, as painted by Tennyson, in the
jewelled, perfumed shadows of his Bagdad
barge, so, in their way suggesting mystery and
jewels, glance at us these woven wonders. And
we must remember that, as the Western man
suppresses his nature, takes color and tropes out
of his speech, shuts down to his side the ges-
tures which passion inspires, so also he effaces

THE LOOM OF THE EAST. 143

himself, and makes a negation of the vanity
which should love to assert itself in rich clothing.
In full contrast to this, the sunny Oriental inten-
sifies his personality with language, gesture, and
all gorgeousness of apparel. To. be able to say
that he feels fine and likes it, the diver cuts for
the pearl the blue wave of the Persian Gulf,
the shadowy jeweller in many a bazaar is teas-
ing the gold with frets of beauty, and glassy
waves of creamy silk are flowing from brown
fingers in many a khan ; and thus the splen-
dor he believes in, he gets. Our ornamenta-
tion is carelessly, unenthusiastically purchased ;
but the Oriental believes in his. "Nigger
fine," he thinks, means not bad taste, but a
human being made as glorious as may be, to
express majesty and power, and to match earth's
splendors about him. The secret of good work
is, first, that it should be made by hand and not
by machinery. The most excellent machinery
has no soul. There is not a heart behind it ;
whereas the rudest work of the hand has one.
Secondly, the workman should be an artist and
not a mechanic ; only so can the best work be
done. Daily, machinery is supplanting work
by the hand ; daily, the artist degenerates into
the mere mechanic. Thus in the end we get a

144 WINDFALLS.

wide diffusion of pretty, inexpressive, unper-
sonal work ; and we have to go to the past Avhen
artists deigned to labor, or to the East, where
mechanical processes are of the simplest, to get
objects that fairly satisfy our taste. Grace and
beauty came at the Oriental's bidding, for they
knew his invitation was from the heart. They
were pleased to go where they were valued, and
often withhold their presence from the votary
of fashion, who invests with no personality any
thing of his attire. And woman now is the
slave of some lamp which shines in the hand of
fantasy in France ; or that pale lamp by which
in England the subject of Hood's song sat pain-
fully sewing, and which, has for its magician
neither Beauty nor Color, but the volatile whim-
sical creature the world calls Fashion. Her wheel
ever turns. She denies to-day what yesterday
she affirmed. She crazes the mind by auda-
cious unveracities, till at last in her subjects
the sense of Beauty dies out. It cannot live in
that kaleidoscopic whirl. Beauty is too perma-
nent and calm for that, and there remains, in-
stead of freedom and love of it in the victim's
mind, submission, and at the best, instead of
Beauty, Taste. But Beauty unchanging lives in
the East.

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 145

VI.

LAVATER ; OB, THE TWO FACES.

TT was autumn in that beautiful part of Ger-
many so vitally connected with its spiritual
regeneration, and where Luther for so long
found a home, and which has pleasant Eisenach
for its chief town. And fortunately the time
of our little tale was before the French Revolu-
tion. The terror of war, conscription, and
the ruined homestead, had not yet left their
scars upon so beautiful a country side. Though
in France, before that event, the peasantry had
been brought to the verge of starvation ; and
gayety and rustic games could not live in the
presence of the corve and the galelle, there
remained in Germany a continuation of the
feudal system for peasants that was not without
its charm. We are startled by the utter igno-
rance of the condition of its people, as displayed
both by its writers and the nobility in France.
There was even then a reign of sentimentality
which pictured idyllic conditions of rural life,
an insult to the famine around, had either of
7 j

146 WINDFALLS.

these classes known of it. Florian and Gessner
drew pictures from their imagination, as if de-
scribing scenes of an opera, where Colin and
Fleurette danced to the music of the village fid-
dler or with garlanded houlette, like Lycidas, led
their flocks through fields in the domain of poetry.
But the sturdy German peasant and his careful
housewife still were a reality. They would sit in
the sun in their Sunday best, the one knitting,
and the other with his faithful mug of beer at
his side. And the spirit of rustic games and
merry intercourse was not frozen at its source
by want. In the shallow and umbrageous val-
leys, not far from Eisenach, in the golden even-
ings of October, the tabor might be heard and
the music of careless laughter. Sometimes these
village fetes would include the young people
of neighboring hamlets ; and then something
like the scenes of kirmesse, as painted by
Teniers, might be witnessed.

The youth of both sexes in their best apparel
would meet there. The young women in snowy
caps, jaunty bodices, and light woollen gowns,
so short that the admiring eye could in the dance
not fail to see with admiration the clocks of the
neat stockings drawn over shapely limbs. And
as the rustic admirer cared not to conceal his

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 147

content, the rose of coquetry would burn with
a blush which only made the golden ear-rings
the mother had lent a more sparkling contrast.
The young fellows disported with a boyish
energy somewhat out of keeping with their style
of dress which seemed too old for them. What
later generations have seen of such a style they
associate with the survivors of that era ; and to
them the dress seems only suitable for the
old. The flat cocked hat, the long and broad-
skirted coat, breeches, ribbed stockings, and metal
shoe-buckles, did not compose an ensemble dis-
pleasing to their partners of the dance. All
knew each other, as belles and rivals do ; that is,
they knew each other by their good or ill looks
and their faults. Jealousy can flame as hotly in
the dull breast of a peasant as it could in the
African heart of Othello. Nor is it necessary
to go to courts for scandal. The clumsy arrow
which drove the poisoned barb was shot with as
lusty a will, as long practice in such archery
could give the most accomplished courtier. For
the glance of malice, there was no fan with
its ambush. Every thing was downright, hearty
give and take, which meant little harm. And
yet a careless word, a neglectful slight, would
leave a wound which rankled for many days,

148 WINDFALLS.

when the compacter square of dances would
dissolve in eddies of that one with which Ger-
many has dowered the world, the waltz ; and
little preferences, little repulsions, were visible
as partners were taken or rejected. All this
was noticed by a figure unobserved by every
one, stationary and pensive, while all else was
gayety and movement.

Both sexes, occupied with each other, were
too busy to notice it. Could they have done
so, their attention would have been arrested by
the pleased but pensive expression of his face.
While the restless and sympathetic eyes wan-
dered inquisitively over every dancer's counte-
nance and action, there was in the somewhat
worn and mobile mouth and brow, a far-away
look of recovered youth, memories of his own
spring-time, and pity for the winter frosts
which chill such bounding pulses. Though the
person who thus gazed might have seemed to
the dancers, in contrast to themselves, old, yet
he was not really so. An immobility they could
suppose weakness ; hands which rested upon a
cane before him, whose top was gold; and
something of fatigue and wisdom in the kind
and questioning face, would naturally explain
such an opinion. But though with much ex-

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 149

perience of men, and a sensibility too tender for
the ruder forms of intercourse, a good heart
and a youthful imagination fought successfully
against any blight from the advancing years.
He was little past manhood's prime ; but there
was that vagueness as to life's years which
this conflict of a soul kept young with the body's
decay might naturally show.

As this figure quietly and contemplatively
watched the ring of dancers, there was a little
movement among them which made him smile.
Much smothered feeling, brought to the surface
by the fervent intricacies of the dance, arrested
his attention. The forms of courtesy needful
for the business in hand were likely to be broken
up by something quite foreign to the orderly
harmony of the music. The story of the village,
indeed of more than one in what concerned
these young people, the silent figure read off at
a glance. What to him before had been only a
misty dream of his own youth, the vague pleas-
ure coming from the double satisfactions of
music and grace, was suddenly informed with
that interest in human nature which was the
passion of his life.

The dancers had left their lines and formed a
group, the men within, the women without,

WINDFALLS.

and from all came cries shriller or more deep
according to the sex of the person who spoke,
nor was there wanting a ripple of laughter which
interested but perplexed the stationary figure.

"It is too bad, Roesel, you ought to be
ashamed of yourself. See Christian and Maxel
how much better manners they have than you,
with your great barn, which looks like a church,
and your good father, who, if he were here,
would say as I do."

The speaker was a bright-eyed, merry, little
damsel, who looked afraid of nothing or any-
body, and, as she saucily looked up with her
arms akimbo, seemed like one of those little
birds who will snatch the grain before the very
face of the farmer. There was crimson in her
dress, and her gold ornaments, brighter than
were those of the rest, shared her excitement and
trembled as she spoke. The young man she
addressed looked sullen, but impenitent. He was
a sturdy fellow, thick-set throughout, but not
wanting in the beauty of strength : a flatness in
his face, a mouth of uncertain expression, and
gray eyes which wandered about with a mixed
air of anger and shame, betrayed an intelligence
not of the first order. Though his dress was
rich, it had not the permitted coquetry of his

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 151

opponent ; for he seemed such, and whom the
girls had referred to as Maxel. His expression
was lofty and defiant as of one not accustomed
to brook opposition. Slowly, as if expressing a
long-nourished resolution, Roesel turned to
Hulda and said,

' I have stood it long enough, and won't do so
any more : you all care for that conceited cox-
comb, and for him I am slighted. I am as good
as he is any day, and could buy him out, stock
and lock, bag and baggage."

A smile lighted up the faces of the girls as
they heard this statement of humiliation and pride
which passion had brought into juxtaposition.

" Oh, we know you are ever so rich ! ' they
cried ; " but you see we are not mercenary."

This taunt so exasperated him that, turning
fiercely upon Maxel, he made a rush to strike
him.

" Let me go : we must have it out sometime,
and the sooner the better."

" To show us what a strong fellow you are,"
with a toss of her head, "that we weak women
may at last be subjugated," said Miss Minchen,
a tall and bony girl, who looked easily as if she
could have taken up and sustained the quarrel
herself.

152 WINDFALLS.

As he stood fronting his angry rival, calm and
a look of pity mingled with defiance upon his
handsome face, Maxel was a striking figure.
He evidently was a well-to-do farmer's son, per-
haps not the equal of Roesel in worldly goods,
but with that air of confidence and success only
too provoking to the other, feeling his lack of
these, a true German cog de village.

" You have spoiled our dance ; } T OU have in-
sulted me : but I forgive both, for I know your
admiration for Rika ; and, as I share it myself,
I have too much of a fellow-feeling to be an-
gry. See that old man who is watching us ;
he has stopped upon his evening walk ; and I can
read upon his good-humored face the disappro-
bation he feels. Pick up your hat, and beg his
pardon."

So referred to, the personage removed his
hands from his cane and gently drew nearer.

" My dear young people," he said, " I have
ventured to pause to witness your sports : youth
and beauty have always attractions for the old,
little as you may care for us fellows who no
longer dance. You have made me very happy
with your enjoyment ; but I am pained to see
that the serpent can enter even such an Eden as
this. But where there is love and strong feeling,
there will be jealousy.

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 153

"It is the most natural thing in the world,
but beware of it. It poisons good fellowship,
is mostly unjust, and harms its possessor more
than it can any other. He who tells you this
by some has been called a philosopher. I dearly
love to study human nature ; and, to do so, I
have long learned to make the countenance of
man my book. I have shared your joy and your
gayety more than you may think ; and the pain
I feel at witnessing the trouble which disturbs
our friend here, makes me wish that he should
learn to be his own master, and so suffer from
that trouble no more."

As the tender and thoughtful words fell from
the lips of the stranger, a revulsion of feeling
was visible in Roesel, and he hung his head in
shame. Encouraged by this, the stranger lifted
his head, while the sunshine of benignity illu-
mined his delicate features ; and, extending tow-
ards the group his hand, he cried cheerfully,

" Come now, forgive and forget. Though I
am only a visitor in your village, I already feel
myself to be no stranger. You must not feel hurt
at the counsel of a person older than yourselves,
who would gladly be of use to you if he could.
You have beautiful valleys here, crowned with
branching trees ; and, much as I love it all, I
7*

154 WINDFALLS.

love still more my fellow-creatures whom I meet
wandering there or reposing in the shade. For
the purpose of study, I have taken a little cottage
here, which the villagers will readily point out to
you. I have there many curious things, books,
pictures, and prints, which I would gladly show
you if at any time you care to pay me a visit.
When you come to the village, ask for the house
of JOHX CASPER LAVATER."

With a courteous bow to the group, who re-
garded him with pleased wonder, Lavater with-
drew. After a sufficient space was interposed
between him and the young people who, till
then, kept a respectful silence, their gayety was
resumed, but not for long. A painful impression,
produced by the quarrel, and the diversion of
their thoughts caused by their unexpected visitor,
interrupted the charm of the dance ; so, after a
few friendly words and an embarrassed stare
from the two rivals, they dispersed, hither and
thither, to their several homes.

It was a custom of the villagers of an evening
to walk beside a little river which ran through
their valley ; it was shut off from the wind,
and the maples on either bank would inter-
rupt the shine of the water with their shadow.
There were rustic benches placed at intervals

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 155

for the elders, or for the younger people when
fatigued. The spires of a remote town softened
by distance and here and there peeps of gigantic
roofs, pierced by little windows, indicated the
boundary of this charming promenade.

Not many days after the foregoing scene,
with a disturbed mind Maxel, taking his stout
walking-stick, left his home and sauntered down
the path by the river, in the hope to forget his
troubles. He was an excellent fellow, and stood
well with the farmers of his father's acquaint-
ance for his amiability, industry, and solid worth.
Those who had daughters were careful to invite
him to their little family gatherings, where they
made him quite at home, encouraging by a
certain free-masonry of fellowship the hope
that ere long he might make one of them-
selves.

The daughters felt flattered by his visits :
his reputation was so good, and his frank and
handsome features gave such an earnest of a
good heart. They would demurely veil their
coquetry in the presence of the parents, or watch
him with curiosity over the flying circle of the
spinning-wheel, as he talked of beeves and the
price of wheat with the old folks. Glances of
mutual intelligence, unperceived by the drowsy

156 WINDFALLS.

elders, would telegraph sentiments which set
both hearts a fluttering. As chance offered,
a sly word spoken too low to go farther, would
give them to understand at what coming fete or
village gathering they might have the happiness
of a future meeting.

But all this kindness but the more embar-
rassed the young man, for it played upon a
deficiency in his character, which was only
made the worse for it. Feeling with his youth's
expansion the sweet tyranny of love, it made
itself of such a volatile and winged nature that
like a butterfly, it flew from flower to flower
without the power of fixing itself. His affec-
tion wanted concentration. Instead of burning
incense before one idol, his heart was like a prai-
rie on flame, which nothing could limit. He felt
his deficiency and deplored it. But the acceptance
he found in the eyes of all the maidens kept
him in a fever of indecision and longing. He
would call up before him the image of the dark
mirrors in the eyes of Hulda, which reflected
the world so soberly ; and the gleam which fell
upon the polish of her raven hair, like the light
on a cascade which curves to its descent ; her
majestic motions ; and her slow, rich voice : but
to find these in an instant displaced by the sun-

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 157

shine which ever hovered round the dimpled and
laughing face of the blonde Elsie.

So one image chased and took the place of an-
other, as if his poor heart were the slide of a
magic lantern. And as he showed what he felt,
and was frankness itself, he was enveloped in a
tangle of preferences, by which his will was
fettered like a giant with cords. This vague-
ness went on increasing, and he was distracted
by it. For the sake of honor, for the sake of his
own peace, he was determined to snap his chains,
and recover again the free liberty of his choice.
If he only knew, then, where to choose : that was
the difficulty. L } emb arras des richesses by no
one was ever more keenly felt. He was the
image of Cupid pelted by roses, and each fair
hand which threw one he knew was ready to
capitulate. Driving rudderless before the warm
breath of love, he must find a pilot who could
hold the helm, and steer as he could not.

Suddenly, like an inspiration, he thought of the
stranger who, two days before, had given him
and the others such fatherly advice. "If I
should mention to any of my neighbors here my
difficulty, I should be laughed at for my pains :
the story would be certain to spread, and all
the gossips would know of it. This man has no

158 WINDFALLS.

part or lot in our life ; and when he disappears,
as he soon will, all traces of our intercourse will
disappear with him. Besides, and above all,
he is a kind and wise man ; while all his equals
in age here are but dull boors. I will ask him,
as a favor, to take a look, a good one, at all the
girls, and get him to tell me the one he most
approves of. If in the decision we don't too
much disagree, his opinion will be the decisive
weight in the scale, and I shall feel a confidence
in my choice which I could not without him.
Bravo ! I feel already my head and my heart
lighter, and a better man for this."

So thinking, and whirling his stout staff in
the air, he set off at a round pace on his walk by
the bank of the Horsel. He had not got very far
before he came to a group of his fern ale friends,
in the main, those he had danced with so lately :
some reclining on the flowery bank ; some on
the stone seat; while others, standing, looked
down and chattered with them. A burst of
girlish laughter broke from them, as he drew
near.

" Poor Maxel, Cupid's knight-errant on a
wanderjahr of love. He never will be quite
right till he gets some fish-skin to settle his affec-
tions ! "

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 159

Though he heard not the latter words, the
laughter did not escape him ; and he felt, as we
all should, that it was of him they were think-
ing and making fun : so he resolutely strode by,
between them and the river, pretending that he
had not seen them, though his hurry betrayed
that he had. u Why in such hot haste, most
adorable of young farmers ? Can't you see that
here is something better worth your while than
any companion you are likely to meet ? ' cried
the blooming and saucy Tina.

Thus addressed, and forced to turn round,
Maxel made a sweeping salutation to the party,
and offered to proceed on his promenade. See-
ing this, Rieka came running up with a flower
in her hand, at the same time whispering,
" Don't mind their nonsense, Maxel, " and, plac-
ing the flower in his button-hole, she added,
" Let this comfort you, and don't forget your
truest friend. '

He then sauntered along, cutting down the taller
weeds with his swinging stick as he went musing
of many things. His joy in his decision to con-
sult the stranger soon brought back his former
spirits, and his elated face bore no traces of his re-
cent disquietude. He held on, happier and more
serene at every moment, till suddenly he noticed

160 WINDFALLS.

how low the sun was, its rays capping with a
golden brown the summit of the Horselberg. He
was preparing to return, when suddenly a figure
confronted him. It was Roesel, who, brooding
over his wrongs, the taunts of the fair witnesses of
his petulance, and the calm demeanor of his rival,
was roused to anger by the remembrance. Now
seeing on the breast of the man he envied
the flower he had lately noticed on Rieka's
bosom, rage and fury took possession of him.
" Is it to protect yourself or your sweetheart's
favor that you take care to bring such a big
stick with you ? You will need something bet-
ter than that if you hope to escape what you
have so fairly earned. Look out for yourself ! '
Maxel stood, the picture of amazement, for
his present cheerful mood had displaced the
memory of the quarrel his opponent remembered
so well. Throwing his stick far behind him,
with a quiet smile Maxel said, " What do you
want ? ' Instead of answering, Roesel, leaping
forward, threw his arms round Maxel's body.
Both were good wrestlers, and most likely before
this at some village fete had tested each other's
prowess. Roesel was the stronger, but Maxel
more lithe and active. He was taller too, and
wound round the body of the other as the

LAVATEE; OR, THE TWO FACES. 161

slender snake winds round the clumsy creature
it dares to attack. The two rivals struggled
manfully and well ; but at last, unconscious that
inch by inch they were nearing the river, with a
great effort and a sudden trip Maxel overthrew
the bulky weight of his rival. The latter
glanced on the slippery sward and tumbled into
the river. He was in no danger ; for though a
little stunned by the fall, and upset by his unex-
pected bath, Maxel waded in after him, and
drew him quickly to land. Slowly dragging
himself under the weight of his hindering
clothes up the bank, Roesel fired, as a retreat-
ing shot, one or two solid German oaths, and
ran away as fast as his unfortunate condition
permitted. Then Maxel, after picking up his
stick, gaily returned to the village. To his
surprise, the company of young girls was where
he left them. When they saw Maxel pass, they
knew that Roesel had preceded him, and they
feared an encounter. Noticing the wet feet and
stockings of Maxel, they supposed something
singular must have occurred.

o

" Have you been fishing? We thought it was
a walking-stick and not a fishing-rod we saw in
your hand."

With a laugh, our hero answered,

162 WINDFALLS.

"I did catch a pretty big fish, and nearly
landed him, but he broke away."

The weather continuing fine, Maxel hoped
that his counsellor in anticipation, the kind
Lavater, might feel its influence, as he did, to
take long walks through the delightful scenery
about Eisenach. The habitation of the sage he
knew was 011 the side where the sweet valley
of Ermenthal extends itself. For several days,
though crossing at all points the most inviting
paths, he had no success ; but at last, near a
little pond at the valley's farther end, he found
Lavater ruminating like a stork beside the
water. He joined him unperceived, and stood
and watched him. He saw him stooping for-
ward, and, after extending his cane, draw some-
thing to land, which he carefully secured ; and,
after wrapping in a bit of brown paper, placed
in his pocket. Then he saw Maxel.

" Ah ! my young friend ! where did you drop
from, and what brings you here ? If you have
come to fish, as I hear you are fond of doing,
this little pond has no such big ones as the great
fellow you so lately caught. I come to the vil-
lage sometimes, and the other day, when I was
there to order a supply for my larder, I found
the tradesmen laughing over your story ; but,

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 163

however, I am glad to meet you again, and you
can tell me more of it if you like. You found
me here, not watching the water-flies, as you
might perhaps suppose, but trying to get some
of the larvae of certain insects from between the
water reeds as you saw me do. Have you ever
seen your own famous castle, the Wartburg,
where your Germany was doubly born through
the new religion and the new language, which
both proudly own what we call the immortal
Luther for their father? But the view from
the castle is fine : suppose we extend our walk
thither and see it. You can tell me your story
by the wa}^"

Glad to have the ice broken so easily, and an in- t
troduction prepared for a smooth descent to that
confession of his helpless situation and need of
a counsellor, he willingly assented. Before they
had reached the castle, Maxel's storv was not

t/

only begun but finished. The anger with which
he remembered the impertinence of Roesel was
a good driving power to push them both past
the guarded wicket within which a young man
keeps the secrets of his heart. When once he
had passed that little barrier, he made his new
friend easily at home there, and free of his
choicest preserves. His disclosures were much

164 WINDFALLS.

facilitated by the glee with which his companion
found himself on his favorite ground. He pro-
duced from his capacious coat pocket a stout
snuff-box, and sent titillations of content through
all his nerves b}^ an abundant pinch of its con-
tents. Replacing the box, he rubbed his hands
together playfully, exclaiming,

" And so you want the help of my experience.
You give me no difficult task when desiring me
to read off the simple language of those ingenu-
ous young faces. No hard task that : it is only
a hornbook containing words of one syllable.
Easy lessons for children."

" I 'm glad you think so, and the luckier for
me. I look upon woman as an enigma ; and a
girl of eighteen is no longer a child."

" Well ! well ! ' laughed the philosopher.
" You bring them to me and I will show you.
I have given you all already an invitation to
visit my cottage. Make that the excuse, and
come with your party any day next week. I
shall always be at home in the afternoon."

As they rapidly walked on, their heads down-
ward bent with this interesting conference, they
did not notice a clear bright face which watched
them, half hidden in the shadow of a majestic
beech, nor did they notice the figure's return to

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 165

a bench, where it had left a work-basket, and
then its sudden disappearance.

" Now, my young friend, that we have ar-
ranged our little plot, let us bury it in our mem-
ory, and, for the present, try to forget all about
it. Keep all your wits about you while we are
at this famous castle, for there are strange and
beautiful things to see."

They silently made the ascent to it, and soon
Maxel's attention was wholly preoccupied with
the objects of interest within the walls. As they
strolled from room to room, Lavater explained
every thing. Maxel, all attention, listened
while his new friend pointed out the curious
suits of armor, and their historical differences,
giving him a rapid sketch of the strange life
that was led in Germany when a man could en-
counter on the highway one of these steel-clad
figures, and the horse under him equally encum-
bered with metal.

" Just as you now see one of our mechanics
equipped for his wandering, with knapsack and
boots depending over his shoulder from his
weapon of defence, so then you might have en-
countered one of these astonishing fellows. You

o

might have thought him an ironmonger, obliged
to travel with his wares for sale. A happy

166 WINDFALLS.

escape we have made out of that into our com-
fortable doublet and hose ! '

After examining the strange pictures of wild
beasts on the walls of a large hall which de-
lighted Lavater, and flattered a favorite belief
of his proving that power and wealth combined
do not always confer good taste, they went as
all visitors do into the famous room of Luther.
Maxel felt the deepest awe on entering it, which
the vivacity of his companion soon dispelled.

" My lad," said Lavater, with a chuckle, " when
our great Protestant threw his inkstand at the
devil do you think he was posing for posterity,
or that he believed the archfiend anticipated
the harm which might come to him out of
that terrible inkstand ? It passes as a story of
hallucination commonly. But, critical as was
his position, the sound brain of the reformer
could hardly have been disturbed so much.
His wildness, after all, may have been of that
sound sort which made one even greater than
he reply to such an accusation in the words,
' I am not mad, most noble Festus.' As a
myth, it is capital, the notion of a battle be-
tween the prince, of darkness and the printed
page, that fountain of light. Sound teaching
must be what the devil hates most. But do you

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 167

suppose the black skin of the fiend would show
any ink stains ? he may have laughed superior,
after all, and bethought him of the small chance
man has with even the best instruction to escape
him."

He turned as he spoke to see how well Maxel
had followed his disquisition. To his surprise,
he found himself unheeded ; for the young man
was busily intent upon the exquisite view before
him. He had never seen his dwelling-place so
ennobled. His sight swept, as down a groove of
beauty, the whole length of the valley of Ermeii-
thal and lost itself in those films of distance where
earth and heaven meet. Half unconsciously, his
eyes sought his own farm-house, the village, and
finally rested upon a shining point which his
heart told him must be the home of Rieka.
Absorbed in his reverie, he forgot the presence
of his companion, and heeded not the devil and all
his works. As his dream deepened and his ob-
servation returned from its long flight, he per-
suaded himself that, among a scarcely visible
group of figures in the valley beneath him, he
distinguished the form of Rieka herself. He
turned suddenly as he heard the voice of his
companion,

" I excuse your neglect of so poor a philoso-

168 WINDFALLS,

plier as myself when I see you are occupied with
one of the most glorious views in Germany.
But it is time for us to return, or my house-
keeper will be anxious."

They left the castle, and found themselves
once more in the modern world.

" Human nature is always the same, though it
dress itself as you have seen in armor, and can
even once in a while throw an inkstand at the
devil. It is an instrument many-keyed, of
many stops, but it is always the same instru-
ment : learn to play on it, and you can manage
the world."

This encouragement to so lofty an achieve-
ment fell coldly on Maxel's ears, as he felt that
the little skill he had was inadequate to distin-
guish the different merits of his fair acquaintances.
I have no ear for that music, ' ' he thought ;
but perhaps the Herr professor will give me a
lesson or two."

Not much more conversation passed between
them ere they reached the point where the path
which led to the cottage of Lavater branched
from the one they were on. Still, once the phil-
osopher, who loved nature because it was the
home of man, pointed out to Maxel a rich bank
of waving ferns through which threads of water

^j ^j

were winding.

tc

u '

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 169

" See what hints nature gives us, " said he ; " this
is how a fernery should be built, in the cooling
shade, upon a broken slope, where rocks are in-
terspersed and where little streams can nourish
the fern's roots and then pass away."

After a cordial farewell, Maxel returned to
his home a wiser and much soberer man. Being
left to him wholly to arrange, Maxel was not a
little perplexed with his plot to visit Lavater
with a select party of female friends, but fortune
favored him ; for, the very day after his visit to
the castle, he chanced to meet some of those he
proposed taking there, and among them Rieka
herself. In the most natural manner she ex-
claimed,

" Friend Maxel, have you forgotten the kind
offer of Herr Lavater to visit him and examine
his wonderful things ? I am dying to go, and
so, I dare say, are Tina and Elsie."

Taken by surprise, but pleased beyond ex-
pression, with a blush Maxel stammered, " I am
quite at your service to go there any day in the
coming week you may prefer."

" Well, then," said Tina, joyfully, clapping her
hands, " let it be Wednesday at four in the after-
noon, for then you will have got through your

day's work, and so shall L"

8

170 WINDFALLS.

After a little calculation of convenient times
and seasons, they finally settled upon Tina's
proposition.

" Let us agree to meet a little before that
hour in the valley, where the path which I have
so often seen him take leads from it to his
house."

The others who had been at the dance were
duly notified, and several accepted. It was even
proposed to add to their number, and assented
to by Maxel in the best possible spirit, young
Roesel ; but, on seeking for him, they found he
had taken advantage of a business engagement
in a neighboring town to disappear. Tina was
vexed, for she had hoped during their excursion
to smooth the bristles of her lover by soft words,
and dissipate his gloom. She knew that from
the embers of one dead affection the Phoenix of
a new love will often spring.

The young people all met, as they had agreed
to, on Wednesday at four o'clock P.M. in the
lovely valley of Ermenthal, and made their way
without much delay to the cottage of Lavater.
Maxel boldly led his little troop ; and, though
the timid hung back, they were soon within the
house. Maxel knocked at the door of the room
which the housekeeper had indicated, and, not-

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 171

withstanding there was no response, slowly
opened it. Looking in, he at once saw by his
inattention and his costume that the philosopher
was as }^et unaware of their coming. His figure,
clothed in a long dressing-gown which betrayed
much service, was bent over a ponderous folio
in which he was apparently absorbed. His back
was turned to the party, and his face partly hid-
den by a white night-cap, a tassel of which de-
pended behind. He was not long left to his
contemplation and study. The girls, to get a
peep, crowded behind Maxel, and soon a stifled
giggle and smothered whispers betrayed their
presence. Pushing back his chair, and wheel-
ing suddenly round, Lavater, with outstretched
hand, cordially welcomed them, removing at the
same time from his mouth a well-used pipe,
which he carefully placed beside the book he
had been reading.

u Ha! ha!' he cried. "I rejoice that you
have not forgotten the old man's invitation.
Come in and rest yourselves for a while, and
then, when you are more composed, I will show
you some things worthy your attention. But
why have you not brought the young man I
saw with you at the dance ? He ought to know,
though perhaps then he was a little impatient,

172 WINDFALLS.

that I should be most glad to see him. Make
yourselves at home, and don't be afraid of my
somewhat rickety chairs and sofa."

Thus encouraged, some sat, while others
lounged about the room hither and thither, as
the various objects attracted them. In the mean
while, the philosopher, having resumed his pipe at
the suggestion of Rieka, crossed his legs and smil-
ingly watched them through the ascending smoke.

Rieka had paused in front of a beautiful im-
pression, before the letter, a present from a royal
personage, of the solemn etching of Melancholia
by Albert Durer. After a close examination of
it, Rieka turned and said,

" Herr Lavater, I cannot make it out. I see
the figure of a seated woman buried in sorrow ;
but what meaning these various things about
her have I cannot discover."

" Ha ! ha ! ' he merrily replied, " do you think
to get at the bottom of a German's brain by a
glance only? The picture is not for you:
you are too young and too happy to have much
sympathy with the sad feelings it expresses.
If you had known sorrow yourself, according
to your temperament or mood, your imagination
would find for you the explanation of these mys-
terious emblems. Look rather at that ring of

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 173

dancing children by Albano : there you will
find not only what you can understand, and
what all women should love, but its simple mean-
ing and grace will repose your puzzled spirit."

" Does Herr Lavater suppose, " she replied in
the softest tones, " that I have not depth of
feeling enough to value the sublime mournful-
ness of the other print ; that I cannot perceive
that it is the soul's disappointment with the pal-
try trinkets of earth, and its unsatisfied longing
which is a prediction of the heaven which shall
be its home ? '

And crossing her hands before her, with
bowed head, her features expressed an elevated
grief, mingled with a disappointment that this
wise man had so little comprehended her. Seeing
this, with a lively gesture Lavater again placed his
pipe upon the table, and came and stood beside
her. Tenderly taking her hand, while, with a
blush she turned aside her head as if from a look
of reproval,

" I have wounded you in what we value most,
the reach and scope of our spiritual instincts ;
but I did not at all mean that. I only intended
to say that you are too young to divine grief, and
that the fancy of a German artist is a cavern in
which strange and winged creatures are but half
seen in the darkness."

174 WINDFALLS.

Hearing a crash, they both paused, and, turning
round, saw that the too bustling Tina, as she
danced about the room, at times calling to one
of her companions to share in her admiration, as
some pretty thing struck her, by a careless
turn, had overset a little stand of flowers placed
between the windows : a small pot or two was
broken and the water ran upon the floor. Maxel
bit his lip with vexation, for the visit was his
project, and he thought himself responsible for
the consequences. One or two of the girls
scolded Tina, while some on the sofa laughed a
little maliciously at her confusion and the embar-
rassment of their host. But, after a severe look
at the mortified girl, Rieka, stooping, replaced
in the framework the earth and. broken bits
of pottery, and then recovering herself said,

" The Herr Doctor I am sure will pardon you ;
for his heart is good, and he knows you did not
intend it."

To withdraw their attention from this disa-
greeable incident, Lavater called around him
the whole party to examine a collection of draw-
ings on Physiognomy that had been made for
him by the best artists of the time. As he
successively held them up, he gave a little lec-
ture upon expression, and explained the natural

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 175

language of the passions as they show them-
selves in life : pride, anger, modesty, fear, and
faith, were emphasized so powerfully in these
drawings that every one could understand them.

" Oh, what a villanous look this handsome face
has ! ' cried Loisel : " I should be afraid to meet
him in the dark."

" That, " said their host, " is the face of treach-
ery : a malignant purpose is concealed behind
those handsome features; it attracts you while
it repels."

" So it does, " said Gretel ; " but look here, here
is a face which somehow reminds me of Roesel."

Taking it up with a smile of pity, and looking
at it, Lavater said,

" So it does, a little. Poor fellow ! This head
is Jealousy."

A smothered titter ran round the circle ;
while Tina, tossing her head, said,

" Herr Professor, he is not here to be seen ;
but, if you should meet him now, you would not
see any more that look on his face."

And, passing on, Lavater showed them his cabi-
net of medals, commenting upon the good or bad
qualities of the high personages whose portraits
they bore. Afterwards, he cursorily displayed a
little collection he had made of insects and birds.

176 WINDFALLS.

But while, to amuse them, he was giving their ter-
rible Latin names, by chance turning aside, he was
struck by the attitude and expression of Rieka.
She had moved on, as careless of this little insect
world, and was standing, wrapped in respectful
interest, before an oblong frame which hung upon
the wall, and held the rules for right living, which
Lavater for his own guidance had written out.

Be and appear what you are.

Let nothing be great or little in your
eyes.

Simplify always things in indiffer-
ent actions, especially in the midst
of the agitations and torments of
fear and grief.

In the present moment, confine your-
self, if you can, to that which is
nearest your life.

Recognize God in all things ; in the
vast system of stars as in the
grains of sand.

Give to each one what is his due.

Yield your heart to him who gov-
erns all hearts.

Hope and carry forward your exist-
ence into the future

Learn how to wait.

Know how to find enjoyment in
every thing, and how to dispense
with every thing.

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 177

" And now, my young friends, I leave you for
a moment to speak to my house-keeper : you can
use my absence by examining and thinking over
these rules of conduct. Young and careless
as you are, you are not too young to have a pur-
pose in life, and to guide yourselves by the best
rules. Such a rule is a rudder, and will shape
your course, so as to escape the rocks and quick-
sands. I shall be glad to think that any thing
of mine may have served to render your lives
safe and holy."

When he had disappeared, some of the
younger girls, more curious than the rest, specu-
lated as to why he had left them.

" Don't you see, " said Elsie, " he dislikes to
have his floor dirty and wet, and he has gone to
have things put to rights. You will soon see his
portly house-keeper enter, with a frown on her
face, and a majestic broom in her hand."

But the fair critic was wrong. Lavater well
knew that looking at pictures, and even con-
versation, was exhausting ; and, after their early
dinner, he desired they should leave him with a
favorable impression. He also wished to study
their characters a little more closely. He there-
fore had desired his house-keeper to set out a
slight collation in a spacious arbor in the garden.

8* L

178 WINDFALLS.

It consisted only of cold meats, a famous potato
salad, and a few fruits which owed their merit to
the fact that they came from the trees in the
garden. Returning, he said, with a smile,

" Now, good people, you have taxed your brains
quite enough ; and it will refresh you to take a
turn in the open air in my unpretentious garden."
The proposal was most welcome : age and youth
had been quite long enough together ; there is
always with both 'a certain sense of constraint
when they are strangers to each other. And a
young girl, like a bird, is happiest in the open
air. So when he had opened the glass door, they
danced down the steps with an explosion of
merriment. Lavater was in haste to follow
them bareheaded ; but Rieka ran to the corner
of the room where she saw his hat and cane
were placed, and hurrying with them said, as,
with a courtesy, she placed them in his hand,

" The afternoon is late, and I suppose that it
would be hardly safe for you to venture into
the open air without these, especially after the
fatigue we have caused you."

Thus protected, the good man chirruped and
waved in air his cane as he saw the innocent joy
of his visitors. Their tone was quite different
from that in which they spoke with him. They

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 179

chased the butterflies, felt of the scanty fruit
which depended within their reach, raced and
even waltzed with each other down the gravelled
walks. Tina even ventured, after upturning a
roguish eye of inquiry, which was met by a be-
nevolent nod of approval, to gather a splendid
chrysanthemum, which she paraded proudly.

" And now, my young friends, I have prepared
for you, in yonder arbor, a little gofiter, so tri-
fling that I dare not incur any increase of appetite
on your part by farther exercise. Come and try
it."

A cry of pleasure answered this invitation.

Seated in the most patriarchal manner, in the
centre of the well-filled table, with a volley of
grateful eyes directed at him from every side,
he dispensed in succession, slices of ham, cubes
of cheese, and a mysterious but ample dish,
the contents of which are, to this annalist, wholly
unknown ; till, finally, the banquet was crowned
with a savory salad. Though the long glasses
were filled with the foaming bock beer, scarcely
in any case except Maxel's were they emptied.
The physiognomist had encouraged their gay-
ety, trusting that each damsel would thus show
her natural character. He was careful, without
being noticed, to observe each expression of self-

180 WINDFALLS.

ishness or rude conduct in any. Some would
eat with deliberation, with elbows well down,
while others would push about their food, cutting
and eating it at random. The tall Minnchen
eat with an austere propriety ; and, though she
emptied her glass, she did not spill any as did some
of the others. Rieka, who by chance sat next to
her host, urged him pleasantly not to forget his
own creature comforts, and did at last prevail over
his abstemiousness to share a little in the salad.

As the shades of evening began to fall soon
after this, with many thanks for his kindness
and gracious hospitality each in turn said Guten
Nacht, and then they all took their leave.

For a long time Lavater, resting his elbow on
the window-sill, his cheek in his hand, watched
the waving line of their retreat, hearing ever
fainter and fainter the murmur of their voices
and the dying music of their laughter. Soon
all was silent. Still he did not change his posi-
tion : a shade of pensiveness stole over his deli-
cate features, which deepened, till presently the
moon rose above the rounded trees, and flooded
all the porch steps, and his own countenance
with a burnish of golden light. Then, if one had
looked, one might have observed in his eyes, as
he followed the moon in its course, a gaze of

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 181

rapt and intimate devotion : the philosopher
looked now a saint.

The fine weather still continued. Lavater
was seated, as the young people had found him
the day before, at his table, carefully examin-
ing proofs which had been sent him for his great
work on physiognomy. He compared them
with the drawings which Fuseli and other em-
inent artists had sent him for his work. The
engravings were beautifully done, and a smile
of satisfaction showed that he appreciated the
care of the engraver. Yet, every now and then,
a twitch of impatience betrayed a discovery that
minutiae which had escaped the engraver's eye
caught his own. These trifling defects seemed
to him prodigious ; for he saw in all the straight
lines, angles, and curves of the human face that
language of physiognomy which the engraver
misunderstood. As he said to his friend, Zim-
mermann, when his theory first dawned on him,
" It is by the lines of that person's neck that
I divine his character ; ' so still every feature
was charged with an expression for him which
even his disciples could not always understand.
And, looking back on his labors from our higher
stand-point of physiological knowledge, we can
guess in what way Lavater was deceived.

182 WINDFALLS.

Lavater was not only a deeply religious man,
with a turn to mysticism, but he was a sensitive
in the modern acceptation of the term : his ner-
vous structure was so delicate that every one's
personality impressed him merely by its pres-
ence. There is abundant experience by others
of this character-reading, through sympathetic
sensibility : his own countryman, Zschokke, had
it even in a greater degree than Lavater. To
him, the experience of it was by no means
always agreeable : he would be saturated at
times, as it were, with the overflow of a life
repugnant to him. Seeing a person for the first
time, he could narrate to him the incidents of his
previous life, and somewhat predict his future.
In our own town, more than one lady has been able
by holding a letter, ignorant both of its contents
and the writer's name, to draw accurately his
mental portrait. It is, therefore, reasonable to
suppose that Lavater intuitively felt the char-
acter of the person he was studying ; and, in his
ignorance of this power, very naturally attrib-
uted to the rules of physiognomy what his in-
tuitions had taught him. He was certainly right
in believing that the face is moulded by the
good or evil within. More or less to every
observer the countenance tells a true tale, when

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 183

not used, as by an actor, for some calculated
expression.

But to assert that such a line of the nostril ;
such curves in the chin, ear, or neck, abso-
lutely define a character, is to make the same
mistake that I once witnessed in England.
A lady who enjoyed the friendship of a sen-
sitive, whose reading of the character she found
true, had endeavored, by comparison of the
letters of the writing of different persons, to dis-
cover the law of these various handwritings.
She thought each letter written by different
murderers, for instance, should in something
correspond. I told her there could be no law
for such an agreement ; but that her friend read
people, not by their handwriting, but by the
relation which that handwriting established
between them and herself. If the laws of
physiognomy which Lavater believed in had
since then proved themselves true, the world
would have accepted his theory, and it would
be generally believed in. But there are no dis-
ciples of Lavater now, in the sense that he would
have wished. Physiognomy remains only in its
natural state, unlimited by such laws as he pre-
scribed. It helps the phrenologist, and we all
unconsciously interpret what it says ; but few,

184 WINDFALLS.

if any, study now the human face in the manner
of Lavater.

While our philosopher was losing himself in
the study of his favorite science, a sudden rap on
the door recalled him to common life ; and, as
he cried " Come in, ' immediately the friendly
and expectant face of Maxel presented itself.

" Now seat yourself opposite me ; and, though
I am very busy, I can give you all the time
you ask for the important matter about which
you consulted me. You desire, do you not,
that I should give you my opinion, as a physiog-
nomist, as to Avhich of the young women who
were here the other day would make you the
best wife. I do not say that any of them might
entirely disappoint you. Some have candor
and sweetness ; and in others I think I read a
covert expression of selfishness and pride. But,
there is one with whom I have no fault to find :
her nature is deep and genuine, her spirit 'ele-
vated, and her kindness shows itself in every
act ; and, though not wanting in high intelli-
gence, she has that docility which comes from
an even temper, and the pleasure of doing what
her heart dictates. Your own heart, I am sure,
anticipates her name when I tell you it is the
one I was told to call Bieka."

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 185

Delighted to have from another the authority
of a decision which he could not make for him-
self, with a beaming face, and slightly waving
his hand, Maxel exclaimed,

" Many thanks, Herr Professor, for your good-
ness- in giving me the benefit of your wisdom. I
quite agree with you that Rieka is the most
charming of women. I think I always believed
so, but I am not quite sure. I will ask for her
hand at once. And, as I have delayed too long
already, if she consents, the marriage shall come
off as soon as possible. I must not intrude
farther upon your studies. But do not fail to
come and see the realization of your prediction.
The sight of a scene of connubial harmony will
be all the more pleasant to you, that its existence
.will be owing to the perspicacity of your judg-
ment and your willingness to oblige. Good-by.
You know where my farm is, and where we shall
be found."

The door closed, and with it for Lavater oc-
curred an instant oblivion of all matters which
did not concern his immediate labors. Bent
over his table, he inspected again and again his
engravings, comparing them with the drawings
of the artists and the models he had in his own
mind. Time flew by, and it was not till his

136 WINDFALLS.

sturdy housekeeper came to rouse him from his
abstraction that he was made to remember that
the time of lunch had arrived, or rather had
been allowed to pass by,_by his housekeeper,
who knew how to add, for the time his visitor
had consumed, an equivalent portion ; and the
philosopher, after losing himself in a devotional
ecstasy for a moment in silent prayer, with lit-
tle sense of the pains taken for his repast, con-
tinued to see the features of human aspiration,
malignity, and error dance before the dishes
whose presence he so little heeded.

And his reverie was not dissipated, but rather
increased, by returning from the meal to his stud-
ies. It held him with the tenacity of a passion ;
and, as there was nothing to break in upon his
musing, for the walks about his garden which
nature dictated could hardly be called interrup-
tions, Lavater continued writing daily much and
thinking more, till that relief and reaction- the
brain demands, at last suddenly gave him a
sense of lassitude and distaste for his continued
occupation ; and then, suddenly consulting the
calendar, he started up, saying, " And the pairing
of my young doves. A whole month has elapsed,
and I had quite forgotten them."

Seizing his hat and cane, Lavater sallied forth,

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 187

hoping to find some one who could give him
news of his young friend. Soon meeting an
Eisenach acquaintance, he was surprised to hear
from him that Maxel had been married more
than a week, and was living with his bride at
his farm-house. Thither he bent his steps,
and his gait was so lively that he soon came to
the limits of the farm. He was pleased with
that look of opulence in nature's gifts, that
broad basis of strength, that copartnership with
earth, which a good farm presents. " Farming,"
he thought, " is the most real of human occupa-
tions : it lives in and by the forces which are the
life of the planet ; for the farmer is always sift-
ing with nicest chemistry each particle of earth.
The sky, with its rain and sunshine, is his fellow-
laborer ; and the seasons, like so many hand-
maidens, each in turn bring him the gifts
appropriate to the hour. If it has something of
the dull conflict of mind with matter, this grand
fellowship with nature endows it with dignity.
Nor are there wanting in the chances of drought,
blight, or tempest, enough of the gambler's ex-
citement to save it from monotony." He saw
the reapers moving to their work, each with his
sickle like a young moon. He saw the golden
fields of wheat, heavy with a richness which the

188 WINDFALLS.

breeze scarcely ruffled as it passed. He saw
from the dove-cot, at the bark of a brindled
mastiff, the pigeons soar like rockets ; and re-
turning fall, with a murmur of undisturbed tran-
quillity, upon the stately barn. And amid the
clucking of the farm-yard and the cock's clarion,
odors from the woodbine and the gathering fruit,
and all the faint perfumes that belong to mother
earth, flew past . him, and he stood to give his
senses this unusual satisfaction. "Ah ! this
indeed is the country, ' he said ; " and how
serene and peaceful must be the lives which are
led here ! My young farmer, with his tender
and diffident bride, must feel that earth has no
better home for peace than this,"

The farm-house was picturesque. It was made
from the wreck of a once stately building, prob-
ably monastic, but so obliged to accommodate
itself to a farmer's need that there was a pleasing
incongruity through the Avhole. The windows
were irregular in look and expression ; for,
while some had round them an ambitious tracery
of half-ruined carving, others of a recent date,
plain but useful, were like a sentence of prose
inserted into a rustic poem. There were columns
at the door, with awkward but fantastic capitals ;
and above, inserted into the wall, was a large

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 189

cross made of stone of a different color. With
some difficulty Lavater made out figures which
gave the date 1621. The roof was broken up
with projections, and a little tower, evidently
modern ; but upon the broad sweep of the nearer
end were let in, as if breathing-places, those lit-
tle pointed recesses which we see so often in the
older buildings of Germany. Lavater, pleased
with this subjection of the old religion to serve
the purposes of modern usefulness, would have
continued farther his attentive examination of
the house's front : but suddenly upon his ear
fell sounds which were a discord Avith all that he
had beheld and was now enjoying. Even where
words are not intelligble, the sound of them
can convey only too much of meaning : the tone
says often more than words. His heart sank
within him as he felt that those sounds were
unfriendly if not hostile. Kindness, reason,
were not there ; but temper, uncontrolled and
raging like a sea, was master of the hour. He
doubted if he should advance, and not rather
retire homeward unobserved. But, besides that
he was piqued to know the meaning of it all, he
had come too far wholly to lose the advantage
of his visit ; so he timidly raised the ponderous
knocker, which fell from his hesitating hand

190 WINDFALLS.

with a heavy thump. Instantly all was silence ;
and, the door opening, Maxel appeared. His
features were so disturbed with pain and morti-
fication, that Lavater exclaimed,

" I dare say you are busy, and my visit is in-
opportune : I will come another time."

But, not without a look of shame, Maxel took
him by the arm, and insisted upon his entering
the house.

In the little parlor, on entering, they found
Rieka : the three stood and confronted one
another ; their faces bore each a different ex-
pression, informed by the feeling within. For
some time it was a mute triangular duel, and
their faces showed it. Each expressed anger in
a degree except Lavater : with him anger was
lost in anxiety and surprise. Rieka was flushed,
her hair and dress in disorder ; and, above her
hard bright eyes, her brows were bent in
scornful wrath. With Maxel anger was lost in
distress and mortification. As Lavater, lean-
ing on his stick, turned his face inquisitively
from one to the other, Maxel's countenance
was drooped in shame, while Rieka gazed un-
flinchingly, with clenched hands and throbbing
temples, at the intruder. At last she burst
forth,

LAVATER; OR, TEE TWO FACES. 191

" So you have come, Herr Professor, to wit-
ness the billing and cooing of the turtle-doves
whom you have paired. Are you not enchanted
with the result of your meddlesome advice ?
Who can doubt your wisdom and learning when
they witness such fine proofs of it ? Is not
your science of physiognomy above criticism
when it can produce such charming results as
you see ? Isn't an old man who has forgotten
the passions of his youth, he who can best read
a young girl's heart and best prophesy her lov-
er's happiness ? Yes, I am not ashamed to say
that we were quarrelling, and that words which
love could never speak had passed between us, '
and, rising in her passion, she put back with
her hand her falling hair behind her brow, and
shaking at him, as she advanced in anger a step
or two, the forefinger of the other hand, she
exclaimed, " And you are the cause of it : it
is all your fault ; you must conspire with this
simple boy here a plot together. You think, at
a single intervew, to weigh and judge the char-
acters of us girls. A little good acting was quite
enough to take you both in, and the actor's
triumph was in her skilful deception. Do you
think I didn't overhear your little plot to bring
us together, and learn at once from the shapes

192 WINDFALLS.

of onr features, the lines of our faces, which one
was good enough to become the wife of that
poor baby there ? Do you think it was not easy
enough to look like a Madonna when standing
before your silly pictures, and by a few soft
words and gestures of kindness to take in the
wisest philosopher of the world ? I hope you are
pleased with your work. To ruin a young girl's
life and embitter a young man's, you must count
a great success of the new philosophy. I won-
der I had the patience to go through with it all,
and not tell you what game I was making of
you, even while winning your undesired appro-
bation. I dare say Roesel would have made
me a better husband than ever can this soft and
docile puppet whom you have given me. Why,
he has not even the spirit to answer my re-
proaches : he is as tame and as fond as a snow
image of a man. Oh ! oh ! I can never care for

o

such a nose of wax ; and I am glad that you
have come that I may tell you so before his
face."

Out of breath and spent with passion, Rieka
paused with bewildered face, and then burst
into tears and sobs. Still angry the more
she showed these signs of weakness, she dashed
into her eyes her knuckles of ivory in the effort

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 193

to arrest her weeping. She tossed proudly back
her head to relieve her cheeks of the entangling
hair ; but still her tears flowed on, at times broken
by a choking sob. But nature had had enough
of violence ; and at last, with bowed head and a
pitiful look of exhausted temper, with her hands
at her sides she stood still.

For a while Lavater remained gazing at her
with compassion ; and then taking her hand,
with a look in which authority and an infinite
tenderness were mingled, he led her to a chair
and bade her sit down.

"There, there," he cried, as she obeyed, "it
does not so much matter as you think. No,
no, it is not as you think, dear Rieka."

The reaction of exhausted passion, the shame
she felt that she had gone so far, acted upon
her like a spell : she sat irresolute and drooping,
with tears standing in her eyes. She resembled a
flower over which a storm had passed, and whose
bowed head was slowly rising erect upon its
stem, and a far sunshine, while recalling their
color to its leaves, glitters yet on the drops
which betray the convulsion which has passed.
Lavater drew his chair nearer to hers, and in
an equable, low tone spoke as one undisturbed

by all he had witnessed, familiar with every
9 M

194 WINDFALLS.

stop of that human nature whose keys had so
lately thrilled with anger.

" My dear child," he said to her, " this is
not your natural self which you have shown me :
something has jarred the axis upon which yoiu
being turns, and it shows it by whirling in dis-
order. What that something is, it is my duty
to show you ; for therein is my apology. Yes,
you are only too right, you are only too right,
when you said that I was the cause of it all.
I hope the innocent one, but still the real
cause of your suffering. Tricks and plots de-
serve to fail, for they are acting upon another
party without his consent. It was not my
fault: it came from the fond heart of your dear
Maxel, who needs confirmation when besieged
by difficulties of choice. He has a noble nature,
which can appreciate yours ; but it is deficient
in concentration, and the power of selecting for
itself as do others. You overheard us, and that
changed your two friends into conspirators.
Our little intrigue and plot naturally wounded
your pride, as you have only too vividly just
shown to us both : but pride is a noble quality ;
and, when wounded, it speaks indiscreetly, as
just now you have done. By no means be
ashamed of it, though its words would have

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 195

been hard to bear for any who had not trust and
confidence in you. You have felt yourself the
victim of an experiment; and your maidenly
dignity did not allow you, I think, to show
Maxel your nature as without our mistake you
would have done. Let the poor philosopher,
who has crossed your life, and brought this
trouble, remove it if he may by words of ex-
planation and regret. For your own sake, far
more than for mine, tell us that this anguish is but
a passing cloud, and show us that behind it is
that sunshine without which no household can
be happy."

A hundred contending feelings chased them-
selves across the heaving breast of Rieka, and
showed themselves in her countenance as they
passed.

The words of Lavater touched as with fire
the wounds inflicted upon her pride ; but the
fatherly tenderness with which he spoke, the
absence of any annoyance which he showed
for what already brought self-accusing blushes
to her face, and, more than all, the kindness
with which he presented her own true picture
of herself, slowly smoothed the raging seas of
passion till they subsided, and all was calm.
Finally, the sunshine of a smile illumined her

196 WINDFALLS.

face, her e} r es were like twin lakes which mir-
rored heaven, and Rieka, the true Rieka, undis-
torted by arrogance, was there. Leaning for-
ward, she gently placed her hand upon the
sleeve of Lavater ; she drew him to his feet
while rising herself, and then, still leaning on
his arm, with half-averted face, as they walked
up and down the room, softly spoke words of
contrition and self-condemnation. But Lavater
would not listen to her as she spoke thus.

" Penitence is well," he said, " but humilia-
tion befits neither you nor me. Be yourself.
4 Be and appear what you are,' as you saw writ-
ten in my rules for right living. That will be
quite enough to make this worthy man forget
all that is not you which he has witnessed, and
send me back to my dear Zurich happy to know
that my visit here has harmed no one, and may
add happiness to the lives of two dear friends
whom I can never forget."

Suddenly pausing in her walk, with sparkling
eyes and a face in which a sense of mischief and
fun usurped the place of the last trace of sullen-
ness, Rieka caught both hands of Lavater within
her own, and, tenderly pressing them, with a
laugh exclaimed,

So we foolish girls, our spite and our tem-

..

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 197

per, have but their little hour of triumph, and
must swiftly melt before that eye which sees so
much, and that warm heart that I feel sure loves
every creature our God has made. What can I
say, my dear father confessor, when you have
anticipated it all ? It was both my misfortune
and my fault that I chose to listen while I should
not. I know now that if any one is to be pun-
ished it is I ; and bitterly, indeed, and swiftly
has my fault overtaken me. But now all is
well, and that bad shadow shall darken our
house no more. If I dared to praise myself
where condemnation were fitter, I might with
some pride tell you, and I hope some day I may
show you hereafter, that the Rieka you divined
was in nothing the Rieka you have just seen.
I love my good Maxel most tenderly, but it
vexed me to have him think me at once that
paragon that angel which your too partial
interpretation of me had made him suppose he
possessed. It was the love of mischief which
made me determine to show him traits of char-
acter surely little angelic, to enjoy his discom-
fiture, and revenge myself on his plotting. But
now, dear Herr Lavater, and now, dearest Maxel,
let us all forgive and forget. I only fear that,
by the law of contraries, I may cherish and love

198 WINDFALLS.

you too well, Maxel, till drowned in honey you
may desire perhaps a little of the acid I have
shown you I possess, to temper the too much
sweetness."

While saying this with a roguish look in
her eye, she advanced to Maxel and with her
hand playfully patted his cheek. But Maxel
caught her in his arms, and showered upon
her lips, through words of endearment, a thou-
sand kisses. Then slowly lifting his head and
glancing over his shoulder he spoke thus to
Lavater,

" I am not at all abashed to show before you
proofs of an affection which I so largely owe
to yourself. Let Rieka's words and the sound
of these caresses go with you, on your way to
Zurich, as happy music, and proofs that your
visit among us simple country folks has been
a blessing which till our lives end we shall
never forget. If again you pass this wa} r , do
not fail to stop and share in the happiness you
have made, and which by that time will have
increased fourfold."

Taking up his hat and cane, Lavater, after
embracing both, stood in the door-way, and smil-
ing said,

"Your kind invitation, my dear children, to

LAVATER; OR, THE TWO FACES. 199

come and revisit you I shall keep unforgotten
in my heart always, with the hope that Provi-
dence will find forme the hour of leisure when
I may do as you desire. Till then, God bless
you, and farewell ! '

200 WINDFALLS.

VII.

THE KIKGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE.

'THHE world has heard enough of King Stork
and King Log, and in their time man-
aged to live under them as comfortably as it
could : but there is a new kingdom come whose
subjects we Americans are ; and under that
dispensation we have not learned at all to live
comfortably. Their subjects, if devoured or
neglected, could at least boast that both King
Stork and King Log were born to the purple ;
but in the Kingdom of Commonplace, if we
suffer, our annoj^ance is doubled from the knowl-
edge that the princes over us hold no hereditary
title, but are the creatures of our own election.
There it is where the shoe pinches most. Not
only is this royalty often neither in honor,
ability, or manners the equal of the society it
rules ; but there is a certain gravitation down-
wards in the selection of our rulers from a still
lower social stratum. One feels a little like the
jeering courtiers of Shakespeare's lord when
seeing Christopher Sly usurping his place : but

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 201

while they laugh he laughs too ; for ours is no
distempered dream, but a fixed condition of
things. And in one point our Christophers ex-
ceed their rival, in their phlegm and down-
right belief in the propriety of the situation.

There was a time with us when as an office
was filled there was a modest reluctance in the
incumbent, who felt his deficiencies : he aimed
to do justly and well, even if not brilliantly.
Then we were proud of our republic ; for the
homely virtues abounded, and we excused much
when we knew there was conscience and
good intention. It was sufficiently near the
Greek ideal of the government of the best not
to disturb our Republican confidence. Our
numbers were less ; the fatal poison of a Doc-
trine of Spoils had not been tasted, nor indeed,
in the simplicity of life, were spoils to be gath-
ered with a dangerous facility : but as riches
swelled and living became more complex, with
the rising tide rose visions of greed before a
blunted conscience and a meaner official, till the
nation began to look on with alarm.

From this increasing demoralization, holding

O O

its head-quarters in New York, spread rapidly
through many municipalities a political disease

which our fathers never knew. A s} r stem of
9*

202 WINDFALLS.

combination organized by bad men, wholly
faithless to the rules of office and their pledged
promise, came to the surface of the body politic,
and got for itself the new name of a Ring.

The cause of this was but too evident. The
world has scarcely ever seen a more grotesquely
painful spectacle than the Ring which but a
few years ago ruled New York. Yet it should
have been to nobody an unintelligible mischief.
Emigrants who at home had not the faintest ex-
perience in government, and often were so tur-
bulent that the military arm was called in to

/

suppress their factious disorder, Helots of so
low an organization that it is even doubtful if
education could fit them for good citizenship,
were entrusted with a determining voice in the
formation of government. That they would
blunder was certain ; but that they should go
to the criminal length thev did, was a horrible

O v

surprise to America and the world.

Jacks in office had never before so abused
their opportunity ; yet not they, but we our-
selves, were in fault. We put into their ignorant
hands the ballot they could not know how to
use. Not the smallest training at home fitted
them for any such function. But we cou-
rageously, perhaps inevitably, entrusted them

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 203

with the keeping and maintenance of our lib-
erties. When they found that brain of theirs,
and that will, so feeble and submissive at home,
became a great weight in the scales of national
destiny, they were easily tempted to an abuse,
the end of which they could hardly measure
themselves. Then was enacted a drama at
which the world shuddered, comico-tfagic in its
acting, and almost wholly tragic in its denoue-
ment, if indeed it be over yet. The sword of
justice is drawn and bared, but will it dare to
strike? The Augean stable has its foul depth
open to the day, but is the river of popular
indignation strong enough to cleanse it thor-
oughly as it should ?

But the short-lived prosperity of these scoun-
drels accomplished one good thing: it riveted
the attention of the nation upon the abuse, and
forced it not only to provide a swift cure, but
prepared the thoughts of men for those changes
in constitution and government which the
nation sees to be inevitable. But in the mean
time the ulcer of the Ring spread and contami-
nated widely. Hitherto innocent municipali-
ties, tempted by these infamous but legalized
profits, lost their virtue and tampered with the
shame. Suspicion and wide-spread distrust of

204 WINDFALLS.

public men was the consequence. The pos-
sibility of impending evil made it probable ;
and the same elements of a fear and alarm,
though acting contrariwise, which had made
the French Revolution almost hateful to the
lovers of liberty, tainted every man's thought.

But it is not of these mercenary foreigners and
the city they misgoverned that I care to speak.
In their selfish rapacity, their shalloAv-pated and
short-sighted selfishness, devouring and tramp-
ling their victims, they may serve as the repub-
lican formula of King Stork. We leave to
that retribution, which has been to them for
the time so sudden and complete, an abstinence
from farther notice.

But it is of matters nearer home, of evils
which are more under our e} T e, of that King-
dom of the Commonplace, the reign of men
of low ambition and dull selfishness, in short
of the Republican formula of King Log,
that I would now speak. The continuance of an
eruption of the criminal classes into a city gov-
ernment and places of honor must necessarily
be short : it cures itself, through the indignation
it inspires with all good citizens; and if sus-
tained by chicanery, conspiracy, or a secret net-
work of unavowed societies, the retribution will

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 205

only be delayed. A citizen soldiery, armed with
right and the support of the best, would soon
put it down in the way with which Paris is
only too familiar. The Americans are just the
nation, with their electric quickness of inter-
communication, and a practice of adjustment in
political affairs, when a crisis threatens, to find
a clever and complete way out of their diffi-
culties ; for these bad men never seem to re-
member that the affairs of this world are not
given over to villany, however skilfully it may
lay its schemes. There is an absolute gravita-
tion of moral law, as secure as the axis of the
world. A gravitation which moves not down-
ward, but upward, and which finally annihi-
lates every opposing obstacle. If there were
one spiritual power friendly to these men, there
always have been enough of them to re-estab-
lish chaos and drown every divine decalogue.
Though, when the day of terror comes, fright
mav make us, for a time, abdicate that conviction

/

of God's retributive justice which is the balance-
wheel of organized society, it can never be pro-
longed. Even the French Revolution, which
burst upward like a volcano, its lava blasting
every fair field of industry, that reign of ter-
ror, lasted not ten years. And the rapidity

206 WINDFALLS.

with which its scars were effaced, and the tram-
pled fields were laughing again with harvest,
shows how secure is God's moral government.
Every barrier which the insane workman of
Paris in memory of that time has erected, lived
but its hour. The cannon shot, armed with a
divine vengeance, fell upon it as if winged with
the justice of God. Therefore, if the future
hold in store for us such a crisis again, we
must prepare for it in full reliance upon the
brevity of the hour of crime. King Stork will
then find but insecure his new elevation above
his subjects, from whose sharpness of beak no
slyness of regard will avail, when the whole pool
about him is in a tumult of judicial judgment.
The soul of rapine which once made that self-
ish figure, whether it bear the monarchical or
democratic outline, so dangerous is getting ex-
orcised everywhere under a more liberal sky.

This danger is always, after all, one of the
minor dangers of Democracy : it is not a part of
its system ; it is merely an abuse of one of its priv-
ileges. But the fear which King Log inspires
is of quite another kind, and much more vital
to the matter. For this has its root in the very
heart of popular government. It shows no face
of apparent tyranny ; its features are marked by

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 207

neither insolence nor crime. But, if not omnip-
otent, its powers of mischief are so drawn from the
very life-blood of the State that lofty and tender
spirits, already look upon its somewhat shape-
less figure with alarm. The very fact that it
is in such dangerous harmony with what we
advocate, is so little conscious of delinquency
that it needs no cloak for an hypocrisy it does
not feel, but makes it the more dangerous. It
considers itself a fair representative of the moral
spirit of the hour. Its allies are not only the
Catilines and the Wilkeses of the time, but these
are largely re-enforced from men of the best
intentions. There is danger of their catching
the disease, and its becoming chronic before
we are aware they are attacked.

In a certain sense, the danger is not only
unavoidable, but belongs of necessity to democ-
racy. The world has hitherto seen itself ruled
by princes and courts, who, even when their
reign was noxious, held a certain knightly
standard of honor and the grace of decent ap-
pearances. The gloss of good manners covered
a multitude of sins. If the peasant was robbed,
the tradesman mulcted of his gains, they ac-
quiesced in an authority which had the prestige
of splendor. They might be brutal, they might

208 WINDFALLS.

be false, those who ruled the land ; but they
could hardly be meanly vulgar.

Now money is mean, or rather the baser forms
of its acquisition. It is a great evil with us
that money carries such weight, that money-
making is so overvalued as a pursuit. Combine
a false estimate of riches as the chief end of life,
give us our rulers without any knightly ideal of
government, and the modern democratic alder-
man is the result. And though the American
people have impulses to unselfish nobleness of
character, as the late war amply shows, they
must reconcile themselves to a level of popular
government, which will have little flattering in
its aspect. That is to say, for the first time
a continent sees itself ruled by citizens chosen
at random from their midst, the generous spirits
in so small a minority among them that the ma-
jority of those so chosen cannot have a higher
standard than that of their daily life, and that
no high one. But properly managed, it may still
work well ; for it will be a true expression of
the national life, and in a great degree in heart-

, *

ier sympathy with the bulk of the nation than
could be the sway of kings or nobles. And
while the tendency to rings must exist, and a
contagion of vulgarity if not of fraud in office

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 209

be liable to spread, it is a comfort to think
that, like our continent emerging from the sea,
through education and culture there is a con-
stant rise to a loftier level in morals as well as
refinement, carrying office-seekers and all to a
greater height.

The optimist and the pessimist will each see
an encouragement for his own view, as he con-
templates the one or the other of these con-
flicting aspects. Let us not be discouraged ; for
there is a radical justice in the democratic idea :
it scares us because it trusts such mighty forces
to untrained hands. It scares because it is like
sailing into the unknown, this experiment of a
people ruling itself. It is the mission of Amer-
ica to show that it can be done. Not those who
believe in it most are the most timid ; they trust
bravely to the justice of its essential intention :
it is only the wavering and the faithless who
are ready to betray their master. And as the
mere habit of living creates an affection and con-
fidence by which that life exists, so every hour
strengthens with the good the adhesive princi-
ple of familiar love, and by so much the repub-
lic possesses a vital defence.

But because to the timid the future may be
big with danger, because to the student of his-

N

210 WINDFALLS.

tory our experiment may seem too rash, is it any
reason why the citizens, loyal to a hope which
should be the hope of the world, should not
do their best by spirited action to keep, through
all its details, our government sweet and hon-
est, frowning with irrepressible anger upon that
maladministration the end of which is death.

We are too pliant and amiable a people :
many things go by default here, because no one
has the courage to stand up and say, No ! It
seems nobody's business because it is every-
body's ; and so by a weak compliance, of which
later we are ashamed, we yield to the pressure
of a mean selfishness.

One may usurp power here in almost any
direction, if he have the good fortune to make
his start without much observation. Take the
case of the horse railroads. If there be any
thing which may be called the property of the
people, the tax-payers, and inhabitants of a
town, it is their roads : they are the arteries
through which the life circulates. In proportion
as a people has good or bad roads, does it have
civilization or barbarism. In England a road
is called the Queen's highway, and in so saying
speaks not for herself but her people. Here it
should be called the People's highway, unob-

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 211

structed, accessible to all, and with no barrier
across it from any class. With the great net-
work of the roads of iron, the railroads, it is
otherwise. These are necessarily the property
of private individuals ; and they make laws for
them as they think best, under the control of the
state. Never did a good-natured people, how-
ever, since the world began, lose, for the sake
of a few, its hold and control over that most
intimate of all possessions, the right of highway.
Without the slightest claim beyond that of
a bill passed in its favor, to the astonishment of
all, a corporation for putting down rails in the
public streets was formed. The horse-car un-
doubtedly is a convenient and cheap convey-
ance for suburban residents. But, however great
the convenience, it had no right to annul the
immemorial use of our public roads as a way for
vehicles. This, to a very great extent, it does :
it blocks the course ; its rails dislocate the
wheels of carriages ; horses slip and fall on them ;
and it relegates to the outside rim the former
owners of the road. And haughty, if not inso-
lent as was this usurping power ; not content
with what the generosity of a legislature had
given them, these tram-ways conspire to take
possession wherever they desire, of a street in

212 WINDFALLS.

the city or a road in the country. Not only no
vehicle, but no householder fronting upon their
track, has any rights they deem worthy of respect.
And their plots ramify out of sight ; influencing,
we care not to know how, the decisions of city
governments where no visible interest of these

o

corporations is at stake. They are the bully of
the present and the terror of the future hour.
Already a whisper circulates of a coming assault
and invasion of old city rights. They are sup-
posed to be at the bottom of the plot. They
have already destroyed the lordly Centennial
Paddock elms, and rumor" hints at the devasta-
tion of the play-ground and breathing-space of
all, our beautiful Common. It may be that
they are a necessity : that the advantage of so
many must override the ancient purpose for
which the road was made. But with the ex-
ception of one honorable merchant who rushed
from his house and remonstrated with these
disturbers of his peace, who were carrying their
rods of inoffensive metal before his door, and
the late hubbub vainly enough made about the
projected track in Columbus Avenue, the whole
rights of us all were tamely allowed to go by de-
fault. It was the most shining example of that
pliant submissiveness and accommodating weak-

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 213

ness of which we see so much in all directions
here.

London tried it, but the iron entered her soul ;
and she precipitately pulled it out of her streets.
If there is to be in the future a silent under-
standing between these powerful corporations
and our city officers, we shall have to form a
counter-conspiracy to meet them. Already for
the protection of our invaluable Common, a
better friend to the poor than it can be to the
rich, an organized opposition to these selfish
people has been suggested ; and, if the evil symp-
toms we fear should show themselves, that may
be the citizens' last resource to shield from abuse
this noble heirloom of the past.

Perhaps one may call this with some doubt
the work of King Log. Yet it was his drowsy
spirit, blind to beauty and the duty of something
more than business considerations, that was the
inspiration of these his representatives. It is
that low level of eye-sight that will not look
higher than the dollar, of which we complain.
It is this neglect of all aesthetic considerations,
or aim at noble and dignified decoration, that
alarms us, less even by what it has done, than
what it prophesies for the future.

There is something pitiably discordant be-

214 WINDFALLS.

tween two such facts as these. On the one side
we see a city made beautiful more and more
from year to year. We see it sanctified by
churches whose architecture proclaims a willing
sacrifice of money for an adequate expression of
homage to the Creator, and encircled with insti-
tutions unexceeded elsewhere in usefulness and
good. And, on the other side, we see a policy of
premeditated shabbiness in high places, which is
a sad augury for the way we are going.

These churches, these institutions, these
museums, the charities of Boston, rest mainly
upon the shoulders of a few. From fifty to a
hundred people act, and have always acted, in
this generous spirit. They have made the Bos-
ton which the world admires and America imi-
tates ; but there is small cordiality between
them and the petty influences which move the
thoughts of the men we criticise. These per-
petuated benefactors of Boston are ignored by
the political class : it may be that there is such
a feeling of half hostility as is natural between
men of such different motives ; but we cannot
help saying that this contrast should be dimin-
ished. It is the man of greed and selfish ambi-
tion who not only prates of economy, but
practises it when he can do it at the expense

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 215

of other people. But they must be taught that
there is no such true selfishness as generosity ;
and no such poor economy as that which pinches
the life it should foster, diminishing salaries
when nobly earned, and postponing for a little
saving a work of usefulness, leaving barrenness
in its place.

The grief that we have tried to describe is
plainly this, though we all accept the principle
of Democracy, we do not at all like to have our
masters caricature and even abuse it.

When an American returns from abroad, he
is at once struck at the custom-houses of our
larger seaports, with the want of system, the
discourtesy, and not rarely a brutal carelessness,
which ends in injury to the more delicate arti-
cles he has brought with him ! A microscope
will be broken, its lenses shattered, while at the
same time the full duty be exacted for what
the official has made useless. Boxes containing
statues will be recklessly pulled about; others,
with pictures in them, so opened that the canvas
or the frame is injured ; and there is rarely the
slightest knowledge of how these objects should
be safely replaced and their cases made secure.
This ignorance and brutal treatment are liable
to recur whenever there is an object which re-

216 WINDFALLS.

quires delicate handling. Expostulation is use-
less ; or, if made, the traveller may find that
he has returned home to meet an impertinence
which Europe could not furnish. He comes back,
his breast glowing more than ever with patriot-
ism ; but this treatment from one, the appointed
guardian of his interests as well as the Govern-
ment's officer, reduces the temperature consider-
ably. Attached to every custom-house should
be an expert, well-mannered and careful to see
that the traveller's rights are not assailed.

I do not speak of the tenebrous roguery
and unsuspected cheating which sometimes
burst forth to light from these nests of gov-
ernment patronage. These belong to the Law,
and not to the essayist, to try and condemn.
It is the tone of vulgarity, the absence of high
aim and purpose of state officials, that we com-
plain of. And we only complain of them, in the
hope that reform, the watchword now of our
better era, may reach them, and not remain an
empty cry.

There has been no serious attempt in that
direction, no proper supervision of inferiors by
superiors, till now. The country will welcome
such a notice and such control. The lofty patri-
otism, the vigilant but generous purpose, which

THE KINGDOM OF THE COMMONPLACE. 217

animates the government at Washington is the
best omen for our future. And we have no
doubt this sweet light of moral intention, now
the rallying sign for the good to the govern-
ment of the Republic, will reach every dark
place and its unworthy tenant.

218 WINDFALLS.

VIII.

WERE THE SLAVE STATES A PART OF THE

NATION ?

r I ^HERE is many a marriage which the priest
cannot consecrate, many a nuptial bond
which the ring cannot sanctify. For the heart
is not in it, and there are the seeds of incom-
patibility and separation from the first.

The marriage of the North and South was

o

consummated before the nations with every show
of a love and fidelity for a voluntary contract ;
but the heart was not in it, and the Union was
but a name.

This paper has no wish to say evil of any
thing or anybody; but it desires to expose the
fatal force of circumstances powerful enough
even to annul so sacred a bond.

There is no doubt that there was good faith
in the beginning. Though the noble words of
Patrick Henry were a too fervent expression
perhaps for an alliance of discordant principles,
it was the true expression of that revolutionary
heat which naturally animated the impending

SLAVE STATES. 219

struggle. It was no time then or during the war
for a nice adjustment of rival advantages, and
clauses of compromise ; for the latent antagonism
then was fused into a common sentiment. The
seeds of the prosperity of the South were not
then sown : it was feeling its way to the future,
and tilling its rich soil with but a poor return
for the labor expended upon it. It had reserve
and coldness towards the Federal Union, whose
chiefs, first Washington and then Jefferson, won
a national glory which the South loves to remem-
ber, for both were her children. The genius of
command she had from the first. Political wis-
dom and the love of freedom she could study
in books, if she saw but little of it about her.
The metaphysics of politics she made her own,
through contemplation and study of the past.
The sturdy good sense which criticises a theory
made small part of her habit of life. This dia-
lectical skill, this French preference for a con-
stitution on paper, for political schemes born of
the head, but which practice dissolves, was
shown from the first. Fortunately it was but a
little part of the balanced, equable mind of
Washington ; but, when the conflict was over, it
made the pen of Jefferson the natural instrument
for that statement of rights, and marshalling of

220 WINDFALLS.

grievances, we call the Declaration of Indepen-
dence.

This recites that men are born free and equal :
men are born helpless and unequal. There is
irony in the fact that a Southerner and a slave-
holder should have been the one to put the
rights of man so strongly.

Through the Revolutionary War one sees no
sign of distrust of the new bond, no glimpse of
any belief in the precipice towards which the
stormy waters were moving. .We may, there-
fore, consider that the Southern States entered
upon the fulfilment of their part of the duties
of a federation which gave to the world a new
nation in good faith and cordial fellowship with
the North.

But when afterwards the terms of the union
were to be arranged, the want of familiarity with
the new principles of government as well as the
letter of the Constitution, made the impossibility
of any chemical affinity to be shown at once.
When votes were to be counted, a slave was
made to match a freeman ; though " all men are
born free and equal," the negro did not find it
at all true, but his master acted for him as if he
did so. The three-fifths rule describes an impos-
sible relation which already threatened trouble.

SLAVE STATES. 221

The reluctant but not long delayed assent of the
North to it was the first of those many conces-
sions which it made afterwards for the sake of
unity and peace.

This assent must have inspired instinctively
a hope of farther concession in the South. It
was they who nourished the delicate plant of
slavery ; and the North must see to it that no
rude legislation, dictated by liberty, should in-
terfere with its life. The North must be its
guardian, shelter it from foreign and domestic
assault, and proclaim for it everywhere a consid-
eration which its heart belied. For the South,
the Constitution simply meant slavery. It was
the weak stone of the arch, and for the whole
arch's sake must be constantly looked after.

And the North, knowing well how fragile and
tender a germ was that of the new Constitution,
were willing from the first to make every sacri-
fice to preserve what represented the national
life. Around it the North saw sturdily spread-
ing the broad limbs of the tree of liberty,
Christian villages dotting the wilderness, the
town-meeting and the State government hourly
more a.nd more vitalized with the homogeneous
spirit of Puritan freedom. It saw little and
thought less of the difficulties of its Southern

222 WINDFALLS.

brethren ; and so from the first each grew apart.
But at the South, as the feeling of something
to defend, something endangered by the sen-
timent of justice implanted in the breasts of
all men, grew stronger, a policy of such de-
fence inevitably took every day a deeper root.
And that sense of insecurity gave them skill.
The training of the plantation gave them the
habit of command. The practice of getting
their knowledge, not from the world about
them, but from books, gave them political subt-
lety. And thus the discordant spectacle was
presented of slave States living a life alien to
all the principles believed in by Anglo-Saxon
freemen, and yet their sons often the foremost
leaders under the national government.

This long current of influences w r hich forms
the Southern politician, it is easy to look upon
through the perspective of history. But at no
time the man who was a part of it saw much
more than the policy of the hour. But always
in this world,

" There's a divinity that shapes our ends,
Roughhew them how we will."

Circumstances play a much greater part than
has ever been understood, even by the actors in
life's game, and often less by the historian who

SLAVE STATES. 223

describes those actions. A genius in one direc-
tion or another may guide a people, but be-
hind him and behind them they are drifting, or
steering, as the hidden hand may guide. And
that is why the philosopher looks so coldly
upon each hour of crisis which inflames and
misguides the passions of the multitude. Never
since the world began did circumstance touch
the rudder of the ship of State with more
tremendous influence upon a nation's destiny
than when it gave the cotton-seed to the South.
The little box which bore from the West Indies
to South Carolina the seeds of the cotton-plant
was as the box of Pandora. Hope it was
indeed necessary should be left at the bottom
of it, if that age could have seen in anticipation
all the evil it contained. That little innocent
ball of downy snow, pure as if fallen fresh
from heaven, was a more powerful agent for
good and evil than any prophet could have
divined.

From the earliest time linen held the place, as
a light fabric, that cotton-cloth finally usurped.
In the tombs of Egypt we find no trace of such a
thing as a cotton garment. Linen was wrought
to a great degree of fineness, and that we find
there plentifully. China from an early date

224 WINDFALLS.

manufactured cloth from cotton ; and, as an ex-
port to Europe and America, we have seen in
our day its abandonment. Little boys and many
men, fifty years ago, wore summer dresses of
nankeen ; but it is now obsolete. The throne
of the coming king, the great King Cotton, is in
America. Here, by the avowal of all nations,
not only is thread of the finest staple grown,
but the extent and certainty of the supply ex-
ceed that of any or all other nations. But the
South had little to do as the primary source of
the new kingdom of that innocent royalty which
has set so many armies in battle. England, the
home of Wilberforce, the author of the emanci-
pation of the slave, holds the first place in that
manufacturing conspiracy which fostered this
new power. France comes next, and the North-
ern States joined the alliance, though they had
comparatively, as an efficient cause, little to do
with the growth of this new convenience. The
South meant slavery, and slavery meant cotton.
Tobacco and rice needed the same labor as cot-
ton, and that the South has even till now only
found in the negro. In the beginning, the mind
of man there was sufficiently loyal to liberty to
remonstrate, while we were the subjects of Eng-
land, with the mother-country against her insist-

SLAVE STATES. 225

ence upon the introduction of slave labor. B ut the
growing prosperity under the new industry soon
absorbed this sentiment of freedom, and reconciled
it to what it found so profitable. And with hu-
man nature as weak as it is, would any other nation
have refused this boon ? For it was for no mess
of pottage that they sold their birthright. For
the last twenty years, though cotton is not quite
the king the slave States thought it to be, it is
only the second in value of American products.
That first is the innocent, universal, necessary
grass-blade, which stored and dried is hay.

The expansion of the growth of cotton at the
South is one of the wonders of the world. Not
long before the year 1800, a vessel bringing some
little to Liverpool as a part of its cargo, the claim
of its being a growth of the American soil was
denied, and the cotton seized. A statistical table,
showing the yearly advance of this product as
sold in the markets of England, marks with gi-
gantic strides the extension of the growth of this
plant. The prosperity which the sale of this one
commodity induced, wherever it was grown,
sufficed for the South. It had but one ambition,
first to retain and then to extend the culture of
it ; and that desire introduced a new and very

formidable principle. Under the complete farm-
10* o

226 WINDFALLS.

ing of plantations, new land became a necessity
for the planter. These two master necessities
first, the security of the growth, and, secondly,
the necessity of new lands were the guiding
interests of all Southern statesmanship. They
were indifferent to the introduction of its manu-
facture (though, oddly enough, South Carolina
can claim to have been the first State to propose
a tariff), for it knew that the negro was too
unskilful to become a workman in a mill. They
had little interest in all that fosters commerce,
or opens new States to a population wholly free ;
for their interest did not lie in either of these
directions. Circumstance was daily inducing a
feebler hold upon those rights of freemen which
lay at the foundation of the virtue of the North ;
and all that goes with successful industry resting
npon human oppression became inevitably hourly
dearer to them. It was not as they might desire
or choose, but as they must. Probably it was
by an insensible change that they found them-
selves aliens at home, Americans, but not
rightly belonging to America. Their policy, at
first subtle and tenebrous, became ere long arro-
gant through confidence in all the metaphysi-
cal falsities which the genius of Calhoun could
inspire. The habit of command, an indifference

SLAVE STATES. 227

to all rights which were not those of the clomi-

o

nant aristocracy, led to a bastard chivalry. For
protection, not only from enemies on every side,
which their system created, but also from the
touchy and quarrelsome spirit of their equals,
nourished in each plantation where every mas-
ter was a little king, a habit of duelling and
carrying arms. At Washington it spread more
than once, among the peaceful representatives
of the North, a reign of terror. The moral en-
mity of the chemical activities of what the North
and South believed, perplexed both parties. A
Northern man could not fight without loss of
consideration at home ; and a Southern man
could not abstain from fighting for the same rea-
son. Behind the Southerner's soft voice and
courtly manners, there was something which an-
noyed, if it did not terrify, his Northern brother.
And the natural fear that the surging mass of
oppressed blacks should rise somewhere in insur-
rection, inspired in the Southern mind, through
fear, that final dissatisfaction with the prin-
ciples of justice and liberty which it considered
dangerous, and made them, in all but the name,
the least American of earthly men. The growth
of these antagonistic practices cannot be better
shown than by the single fact that, while the

228 WINDFALLS.

North was laying deep the teachings of liberty
for the future in an extended and costly system
of common schools, the South was denying the
right of education to the negro.

At last slavery formulized and incarnated
its idea in a man. Educated of course at the
North, for the South had no satisfactory college,
Calhoun turned all that he had acquired of in-
genuity and sophistry to the support of the
cause he considered himself bound to defend.
But an upright and loyal Irishman met his dia-
lectics with an iron will of resistance. General
Jackson could act and suppress revolt, but he
could not speak. Circumstance and a watchful
providence furnished from the lips of Webster
a patriotic and judicial eloquence which was a
new declaration of rights to the lovers of their
country.

The battle for the world which Grant won was
anticipated and made easy by a victory over a
man of ability who spoke as representative of the
Southern idea. His saucy impertinence to our
State, which perhaps led the mind of the time,
a State whose cause was that of every sister State
untainted by bondage, drew upon his cause
such a weight of moral indignation, such an elo-
quent fire of retributive justice, that it fell and

SLAVE STATES. 229

withered as before lightning. The rebellion
which South Carolina then contemplated was
inchoate : it slumbered like coals under ashes till
the whole South at a later period burst into

flame. At his death-bed when President Jack-
son was asked by the attending clergyman if
his soul was at peace, and he left the world with
nothing to regret, " Yes, by the Eternal, there is a
thing to regret, that I did not hang Calhoun."

We may imagine that such a violent catas-
trophe might have smothered forever rebellion
and taught the South a lesson : but it is a mis-
take to think so ; for, like a rapid driving to
its fall, men's thoughts there were all moving
the same way, for the same end, and with the
same violence. It might postpone, but it could
not avert a crisis in the nature of things inevi-
table. When poison loads the air, and the health
of the body or the mind is tainted by it, Nature
clears up the pestilence by a thunder-storm.
So the thunder of the cannon was the only
chemistry through which a change could be
effected, which should keep the nation sound
and whole, and not two unavowed enemies.

It is not every one at the North who under-
stands where the South anticipated the trouble
its conscience feared. Moving in an opposite

230 WINDFALLS.

direction to the moral forces of the world, it
had but two safeguards, the possession it
had taken of the world of manufactures and
commerce, the friend it had created wherever a
cotton-mill stood, and the permission guaranteed
to it by the American Constitution. In anticipa-
tion of the revolt it feared, it had prepared a
postern of escape in State Rights ; the just
dominion of a Federal State it made, through
exaggeration, a fanaticism ; and the reason was
simple, if slavery should be nationally threat-
ened through the vote of a majority, it meant to
dissolve the Union, and withdraw within the
limits of its State lines. Their country was
not the United States, but the States which
practised slavery. At home it knew there was
but one opinion, but the general government
might become its enemy. This is pointedly
shown in the following anecdote :

Captain Ingraham, a native of South Carolina,
but serving in the American navy, had won great
renown for his patriotic daring in seizing from
Austria a person who claimed to be an Amer-
ican citizen. The " London Times ' wrote in
admiration, " Would ever England so stand by
a subject of its own ! ' Meeting the captain in
Paris, just before the civil convulsion, I ven-

SLAVE STATES. 231

tured to ask him, who had just given such
increased dignity to the American name, on
which side he should place himself in the coming
struggle.

" Of course, I shall go with my State," the
gentleman replied.

I was astonished, but said in return, " What-
ever happens, we at the North will not go with
our State, but with our Country."

As two inclining lines are fated to meet some-

o

where, so the oppugnant directions of North and
South met at the point which the latter consid-
ered vital to its prosperity. Monstrous Slavery
must be fed by the acquisition of new land. In
cold blood, the South had fomented a quarrel with
Mexico, and the North was to help in fighting for
slavery by the acquisition of Texas. To the dis-
gust and surprise of the South, the same war
gave the North and Freedom a makeweight for
this acquisition in the purchase of California.
That was made a State through Northern emi-
gration: and but for a moment, when intrigue
nearly seduced it, its heart was always given to
freedom. Then the field of contest was Kan-
sas ; and, in opposition to all the South could
do, it rightfully made one more of the States
which are free. The South brooded over its dis-

232 WINDFALLS.

appointment, and thought the hour near when the
hostile majority they had feared would endanger
the very life of slavery. As its motives could
not be avowed, the decision to make the election
of Mr. Lincoln the point of separation took
the nation by surprise. The North could only
see in him a wise and constitutional ruler who
would be scrupulous to render to the South all
that the Constitution had given her. But the
South saw in his election the overthrow of its
hopes of controlling the nation. Both parties
were irritated by a natural antagonism, feverish
with a delayed issue, and fanatical for liberty or
slavery as each deemed theirs the one thing need-
ful. The North had, with great patience, for
a long time borne, through loyalty to the Con-
stitution, the taunts of foreign nations and the
violence of a small but energetic party in their
midst who had but one creed, the instant aboli-
tion of slavery. This party, composed of hetero-
geneous materials, was led by a man, simple
and brave, who in his own person had tasted
of the sweets of oppression. And there was an
orator to fire men's souls, gifted as few orators
are with all the arts of eloquent invective, and
there were humble and tender souls who sacri-
ficed the privacy they loved, to become suspected

SLAVE STATES. 23

Q

among their friends, but driven by an impulse
they considered divine and which they could not
resist.

The South, from the first, had feared this
small party of the abolitionists. How small
they were we have half forgotten, since the
whole nation has moved to their place and even
beyond it. What they saw in the distance,
as the ultima Thule of their hopes, the nation
has long since reached and made its own. But,
with some spirits, the ardor of enthusiasm be-
came so familiar that they continue to thunder
and lighten unobservant of what the patriots
they denounced had done in their own direction.
They have tasted the luxury of influence, the joy
of battle, and will not turn their faces towards
a reconciliation in which, neither at its terrible
beginning nor peaceful end, they had much part.

One would have thought there was but one
virtue in the world, and that they had the mo-
nopoly of it ; and thus, as they publicly withdrew
from that Union which they had called a " com-
pact with hell ; ' so now, though their wildest
desires are surpassed, they are rather spectators
than participants in the marvellous Unity which
was again made whole without them.

And in the days of trouble, when a spiritual

234 WINDFALLS.

selfishness released them from the burden that
had to be borne, the wiser, more cautious, more
patriotic citizens whom some had denounced,
knowing that the one bond which held us all
together was the Constitution and that with-
out it the nation was at sea, bore it without
them. The world has never done the latter
justice. It was loyalty to the duty that was
nearest which made them seem to disregard
the moral meaning of the time. They hated
slavery as much as any, but they loved America
even more than they hated that. They were
content to be misunderstood and vilipended,
knowing well,

" They also serve who only stand and wait."

They felt, perhaps unwisely, that the complica-
tion was too great even for a hater of slavery
when burdened with the restraints of the Consti-
tution. They or their sons, later when Provi-
dence struck the hour for the slaves' release,
were found in the front ranks of the nation's
saviours. With them, indeed, must be counted
the indifferent and the great herd whose moral
energy is too weak not to prefer the sweets of a
shameful present to the danger and fatigues of a
glorious future.

When slavery was abolished, the life of the

SLAVE STATES. 235

slave-owner ceased to have any intelligible
meaning. With the best intentions to accept
the decision, which he had invited of the matter
by war, the Southerner could not be expected
to abjure so wholly his past as to be at home in
his new position. The habits of a life, familiar-
ity with slavery, its uses and abuses, forbade it.
No position could be crueller than his. Through
his bravery, he had exhausted by a pertinacious
tenacity all the resources of the South. Arid, as
one of a class, wholly unfamiliar with labor of
any sort, he could neither gain a living or pay
for slave-labor so suddenly become free. His

V

pride, and that of the women of the South as
well, made them stoically endure what only time
could cure. Not only was a negro looked upon
still as a slave, whose manumission was enforced
without his master's consent, but he bore towards
him that natural enmity which his cause, identi-
fied with that of the North, made so natural.

Outrages occurred, and the half-smothered
civil war at times flamed up between these two
races. Activity and labor were for a time at a
stand-still, and Northern emigrants, who hoped
to profit by the cheapness of land and the sym-
pathy of the slave, found their affairs going
from bad to worse. Many returned after the

236 WINDFALLS.

failure of their attempt, and the supposed fugi-
tive visit of the rest won for them the unpleas-
ant appellation of " carpet-baggers." As the
Northern emigrant and the freed slave were in
alliance, they could consider the war continued,
though under a new aspect and through differ-
ent methods. The pressure which they both
bore upon the slave-owner would reinforce his
old prejudices, and make it difficult for him to
forget the past and make the best of the future.
To his surprise and dislike, he found the blacks,
from whom he had always withheld education,
quick and clever to learn not only the common-
places of teaching, but manifesting a consider-
able aptitude for politics and public affairs.
The absence of all training and education
among the negroes before the war, he might
have supposed would leave them helpless and
adrift under their new responsibilities ; but he
found that, though they could not overcome
wholly their former awe at the sight of a white
man, the new familiarity with arms brought
their self-respect to a higher level, and with
exasperation he found them willing to face their
old masters if severely wronged.

It was the inevitable necessity that the end of
the old practices and prejudices, and the begin-

SLAVE STATES. 237

ning of a new order of things, must be slow.
Slowly the former dynasty faded and died away.
Slowly the old generation relinquished the be-
lief of a lifetime : but there is an end to all
things ; and, as the life of their system slavery
had received its death-blow, the habits and
usages it bred necessarily died with it.

ARE THE FORMER SLAVE STATES NOW A PART

OF THE NATION?

To such a question there would seem to be
but one answer : There is now nothing to fight
for, nothing to hope for, in the old perished doc-
trine of the enslavement of the black race. If
there should be a conspiracy to that effect,
the most improbable thing in the world, it
must fail. Not only would the North at once
suppress it, but the new colored citizens of the
South would not find it a matter too difficult for
them to deal with. Gaining hourly self-respect
and confidence, and a better training in military
service, they would prove equal to the occasion
without Northern aid. That brutal persons
should at times express the old sentiments, and
endeavor to keep the blacks under by humilia-
tion and outrage, is to be expected ; but the
present relation between the races must modify

238 WINDFALLS.

this barbarity, and bring about, through the help
of mutual advantage, a reconciliation. The
next generation, if it have not forgotten the sins
of the fathers, will see all things from a different
standpoint. Time, in national as well as indi-
vidual troubles, is the great healer. What
France calls " un fait accompli " is omnipotent.
The passionate ignorance of human affairs
evinced by the slaveholders may make them less
ready to accept a change, heartily as well as
legally, than are the nations of Europe, familiar
with political convulsions. But they cannot
turn aside the stern decree of fate. And in
one important particular they seem already to
have accepted it. The false political economy,
the daily and nightly terror bred by slaveiy,
have left them awakened to the discovery that
that institution was a bale and not a blessing.
They are glad to be rid of it, and can now sleep
in peace. If they prefer a suicidal policy, to
be putting ever obstacles in the path of prog-
ress, they may delay their own prosperity, and
refuse for long all the advantages of freedom.
It rests with them to be Americans, as we all
are, proud of their birthright, with no covert
disloyalty to the Constitution, so unlike the one
to which they owed their former impunity. A

SLAVE STATES. 239

tide of good-will, of better feeling, forgiveness
and forgetfulness of the former enmity, is visibly
rising throughout the nation. We hail a hap-
pier day,

" When the war-drum throbs no longer,
And the battle-flags are furled."

When breast to breast we march together, both
children of a happy confederation, expectant of
that final amity of all peoples, as the poet ends
his verse,

. . . " in the federation of the world."

The one question the North and South ask
now is, Can the former slave States find under
freedom a prosperity which shall make them
forget their allegiance to the principle of oppres-
sion ? Can the black meet successfully the ter-
rible axiom of the survival of the fittest, and
hold and occupy his new place ? Is he willing
to work ? Has he an ambition for honor and
comfort sufficient to save him from the abject
indolence and uselessness into which he at least
has partially fallen in the West Indies ? Is his
brain, so quick to acquire, equal to the strain of
civic duty, the fortitude needful in his daily
affairs? If not, is the principle of freedom a
sufficient attraction for the swarms of emigrants
Europe sends, and the freedmen of the North, to

240 WINDFALLS.

take his place if he should leave it vacant ? A
self-constituted prophet might to these questions
give a confident answer ; but time only can
know what secret it withholds. There is every
reason to suppose that the blacks will soon gain
so much of industry, knowledge, and temperance
as to become in their degree children of a new
civilization. If, with their new rights and their
new duties, they should not, they must bear the
responsibility of the failure, as must the whites
in their turn if they should be false to the advan-
tages which freedom offers. There is no reason
for alarm, nor perhaps should our expectations
be too high. Both races are under a disadvan-
tage. The one, that thus far all its beliefs and
habits have been un-American and un-republi-
can, while the other has the prodigious disad-
vantage of an inferior brain to work with.

We cannot with these two expect the South,
at least presently, to rise to the level of States
wholly white and always accustomed to liberty.
We must be content with a degree of advance
which circumstances permit. But if the black
should comport himself as a citizen should, and
the white forego his evil plantation manners, a
Northern emigration of freemen may descend
there, bearing with them the seeds of a better

SLAVE STATES. 241

culture, a better civilization, and thereby carry
both the master and the slave to a higher level.
And white industry, intelligent and many-
handed, may find that there are sources of
profit hitherto neglected. The planter may
adhere to his plantation farming ; but these
new-comers may find the land profitable for
more things than cotton. The orange, the fig,
the olive, may hereafter be seen in those fields

v

once only white with the cotton-plant. And
the cotton-mill may stand at the side of the
cotton-field, saving the labor of transport, and
manufacturing near their own doors. And the

o

silk-worm may desert the plains of Lombardy,
and make its home in a climate which it will
not find to be hostile.

China may with surprise see tea which rivals
her own, and Cuba discover that not she alone
holds the monopoly of the finer qualities of
tobacco. Ships shall ride in her harbors, glad to
bear the treasures of their soil and the products
of their looms to distant nations. A better and
more varied agriculture may succeed in raising
growths which the slovenly method of the past
has forbidden. A good mechanic may at last
be known in the land, with a more convenient
house architecture, a better provision against
11 p

242 WINDFALLS.

the season's changes, doors that will shut and
windows that will open, may be the improve-
ments of that better day. And when their rep-
resentatives meet ours in the councils of the
nation, they will not come with a secret disloy-
alty to Freedom, and all the fears which fol-
lowed the path of the vanished spectre, but with
frank allegiance and cordiality ; and a common
purpose of unconflicting and useful legislation
then shall be the heralds of America's consum-
mation, the beneficent glory, without blot or flaw,
of a Union of confederated States, not nominal
only, but complete and enduring.

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 243

IX.

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE.

1VJEVER did American good-nature show to
* ^ better advantage than after the Civil War.
Not a rebel chief was shot, not a rebel soldier
imprisoned. As the arms of conflict dropped
from the hands of the combatants, those hands
were ready to lift themselves in a mutual em-
brace ; but both 'had enough to do to direct
and set on his feet the negro, the cause of
the quarrel. Their and our methods differ, and
both are likely to be tried before we are done
with them.

Indeed, without our national amiability, a re-
public would seem impossible. But, as we said
before, this amiability should not be carried too
far. When horse-cars are stuffed as if with
slaves packed for the " middle passage," when
tipsy men disgust by their brutality women
and children, the public should remember its
rights, and see that the fare paid secures to
each one a seat, even if the number of cars

244 WINDFALLS.

need to be doubled ; and that the passenger be
safe from the oaths and turbulence of roughs
and the inebriate.

American good-nature is proverbial. Some-
thing of that Arcadian good-fellowship and
simplicity, which Rousseau supposed belonged
to the savage state, may be found here. This
good-nature is an interesting subject for study,
as the lights and shades of it enter largely
into the composition of our picture, the pic-
ture of America as it is to-day. The causes
of this amiability it may be useful to point
out, as helping us to a better understanding
of ourselves, and how to deal with its shady
side.

One might have thought that ambitious men,
equal before the law, yet trying to surpass
their fellows, would have brought much acri-
mony and insolence into their struggling ambi-
tion. One would have thought that a climate
so imperious, so exciting, so nervous, would
have soured the most amiable tempers ; but, if
there be any thing of these, they do not much
abate the general amiability. It certainly is
not from our fathers that we inherit this trait.
Their virtues and their faults are the reverse
of our medal. If the Englishman be difficult of

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 245

access, short in reply, having that watery moodi-
ness which a hundred years ago was called
spleen, he also has " the qualities of his faults."
He is manly, truth-loving, and will not have his
personality easily invaded. Now, the American
is somewhat the opposite of all this, and his
faults may be expected to be as unlike those of
his kinsman as are his virtues. If we should
borrow from our English cousins their down-
rightness and honesty in dealing with the
unpleasant side of our subject, we owe the
reader no apology. There is no good in shirk-
ing truths, though to name them is to wound a
vanity which nourishes itself only on sugar. A
critic, on being once taxed with abusing his
native town, replied, " I do not abuse : I only
describe." If ever we are to recover that ro-
bustness of personality, that instant denunciation
of the evil that strikes the eye, that martyr
spirit which separates a man from the crowd,
the beginning must be made by a full recog-
nition of the need of reform. In bringing the
Englishman and American into comparison,
their considerable difference of temper makes
us ask, " And are they not the same race, of the
same blood, and has not the offspring broken
from the parent stock only a poor two hundred

246 WINDFALLS.

and fifty years ? ' Such questions stimulate us
to search for the discovery of these differences
which time has so swiftly established. One
must theorize a little and risk mistakes, if one
dare to investigate. It is sad to say that, like
the diagnosis of the physician, " To point out
a disease is not necessarily to cure it." But
both he and we may thus hope to do something
by an indication which includes counsel and
warning.

It is observable that the sun stimulates life,
and its withdrawal produces gloom and deadens
that expansion of the vital forces which engen-
ders sympathy. Sympathy is a word in not very
good odor in England. The Englishman stands
alone in his cloud ; but the bright sun of America
fuses us into a common mass, as heat does bul-
lets. And yet England, too, is a unit, as, in-
deed, without knowing it, all nations are.
Patriotism never fails in Great Britain. How
obstinate and tenacious it is, Bonaparte found
out to his cost. Their patriotism springs from
their pride and character. Ours from the head,
a genuine belief in the value of the institu-
tions we stand for. All southern nations, if
they be quick and vindictive, have a sunny tem-
per : that fruit ripens in their sunshine at least.

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 247

If this be true, we have a fair right to be more
amiable than our progenitors. But we have
something more than sunshine. "With an alter-
ation of Byron's line, we all feel

X

..." the electric chain wherewith we are ' brightly/
bound."

In no other way does the whole country tele-
graph its news, its humors, and its passions. If
England feel like one man, we think like one
man ; and these wafts of intelligence foster an
unconscious philosophy, kindle sympathy, and
create amiability. We are always ready to make
allowances. All life is brought before the forum
of the brain, and even the passions are intellec-
tualized. There is too much strain and hurry in
our activity for much delay over culpability or
outrage. We frown regret, and pass on. We
are too much driven by the current of our life to
even pause and feel very angry, and also we dis-

like waste of power. To a purely intellectual
being the display passion makes, even if it be
that of a just indignation, is unseemly and
offensive. We at last look at all things by the
dry light of reason, till ardor or enthusiasm get
to shew like loss of balance or intoxication ; or,
alas ! a warm expression of personality may hint
of Sonierville and the mad-house. A man's

248 WINDFALLS.

friends are timid and alarmed when dealing
with originality. Instead of appreciating the
strength and interest of an independent char-
acter, like shepherds with crook and voice they
try to get his head turned in the way of the rest
of the flock. Hence the cold, questioning eye
one meets in the street, which says, " Aren't
you mad yet ? How dare you be so odd ! Fall
into line." And so we fall into line, and regi-
ment our thoughts into battalions and march
with the rest. Where all are mad, a sane man
seems the only madman. And so he apolo-
gizes for his existence if at home, or expatri-
ates himself to breathe a freer air. For there
is no tyranny like the tyranny of no choice ;
European preferences die out in an ungenial air,
and our tyrannous climate makes us submissive.
It early teaches us not to quarrel with the ele-
ments, for they are our master. The winds
which will be howling at all hours whip us into
submission. The thermometer which hangs in
sight before every house dictates to us the dress
and duty of each day. The irresistible control
of the skyey influences pass over us like some
great plane, which brings all surfaces to the
same level. Each salient point is whirled off
as a shaving, and falls to the floor's level ; and

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 249

there is a shame about the exhibition of weak-
ness, and bad temper is a Aveakness. Rumor
will soon fly with a noise of such an exhibition ;
for, above all, we must be on our guard against
Mrs. Grundy. All such foul linen as scolding or
violence must be carefully washed at home. It
does not pay to be any thing but what the pub-
lic wants. They look upon you as their prop-
erty, use you at their convenience, and like to
see you strain in harness with the rest. A man
does not stand for what he is, but what they
value him at, and they take care to tell him so.
They ignore what he modestly counts most
precious in himself, and bid him wear the label
of the virtues which they prefer.

From all this we may readily guess that this
sunshine, that this amiability of ours, is not
without alloy. There is the gold of genuine
kindness ; but, to give it currency, it is debased
by something which is neither sunshine nor
amiability, and this something is simply weak-
ness. The way this good people allow them-
selves to be imposed upon in so many ways is
not through their willingness to oblige, but
through their weakness. Politicians and rogues
trade upon it, and even criminals find in it a

haven of refuge. With the weakness there is a
11*

250 WINDFALLS.

kind of bastard philosophy, which not only ad-
mits that one man is as good as another, but
adds, and perhaps one man may be as bad as
another. This reluctance to condemn, the de-
nial that an}^ crime is worthy of death, is a kind
of democratic reverse of a formula with which
our Constitution begins, and seems to say, " That
is an aristocracy of righteousness which dares to
rise above equals so as to smite them with its
retribution." And these soft hearts are glad to
point to the statistics which prove that capital
punishment does not diminish crime. They
would gladly see the murderer languish for
years in a half-death within the prison's four
walls, rather than push him at once before the
all-merciful Judge, whose sentence may be less
bitter. Their weak amiability disguises from
them the atheism which denies to the criminal
the rehabilitation which he can only get in
another life. Society, too, condones crimes re-
lating to money ; while it is unsparing for infi-
delity to the marriage vow, duelling, or any
form of oppression. For us, the sons of the
Puritans, seem written the lines aimed at our
Puritan fathers,

" Compound for sins they are inclined to
By damning those they have no mind to."

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 251

Since imprisonment for debt as a law has
been abrogated, there is a very easy virtue as to
money obligations. A rogue leaves the country
with the money confided to him, and jauntily
asks the world for a " suspension of judgment.'*
So, in the West, they call murdering a man in
the street " a difficulty," to let down easily a
familiar crime which they are inclined to. There
is no truer dissolution of society than when it
gets indifferent to the sanctity of contracts. It
is then more or less an organized piracy, when
honest and confiding men with all their prop-
erty are made to walk the plank. Little by
little, it is making integrity fight at a disad-
vantage with roguery, and, as the descent to
Avernus is easy, there are constantly more
lapses from the ranks of those who were staunch
to pecuniary obligations.

On the esplanade, at St. Thomas, you could
see, thirty years ago, comfortably promenading,
pirates who had retired from business ; and to-
day, in our streets, the men who do not take
lives, but only fortunes from others, pass with a
smile their victims, secure from even personal
assault. One would have thought that in a
wild, new country, when the law offered no
redress to the victim, he would take the law into

252 WINDFALLS.

his own hands, and punish the pirate ; but no.
His good-nature, and the good-nature of all, for-
bid this. It is a business transaction, the
luck of the weaker, and before what court
shall the lamb bring such a wolf when even
the juries' hearts lean to the aggressor ? These
are not the days of violence, and pardon is the
duty of the Christian merchant ; and so these
wolves stalk abroad by daylight, and prowl in
bands which they call " rings," and civilization
includes in its improvements an organized and
permitted brigandage. And this will go on, save
when a spasm of retributive justice breaks the
routine, till the nation puts more iron into its
blood. A gallows conveniently placed at either
end of Wall Street, with Policeman X for a
Jack Ketch, might be useful. In every city the
broker's board would be sure to hear of it, and
act accordingly. Credit lives only by the faith
man has in man, and credit is the life of trade.
A certain per centum of rascality, and trade
feels her wheels blocked ; for credit is dead, and
she cannot move on. Business is America's life-
blood. Kill that, and the nation perishes ; and
how can such a consummation be reached more

swiftly than by this indifference to loyalty and
honor in business transactions ? Then our good-

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 253

nature becomes a crime ; then, indeed, we know
it is no longer good-nature, but the most danger-
ous weakness.

There is perhaps no other country where the
citizens feel the government more their enemy
than here. This suits us, and keeps up a chronic
revolution which expresses itself every four
years, not without animation. This hostility of
one party to another makes the day of elec-
tions a battle ; but it is a battle without blood-
shed, and immediately after life runs in its usual
channel.

This calm after a storm we glory in. No
other country could achieve it. And this ab-
sence of violence, this repression of bitterness,
is not wholly owing to a political education or
the habit of self-control. Then is American
good-nature, to which it is chiefly owing, seen
at its best and brightest. That is its hour of
triumph. We cannot tell how much our good-
nature owes to these hours of conflict, to which
it rises superior. It grows with every trial ;
and perhaps, among the many causes to which
it is due, this national habit of unimpassioned
surrender to the majesty of a majority is the
most direct and important, as it is the occasion
of its noblest expression. But, though the con-

254 WINDFALLS.

flict is soon over, and all confess Majority to be
king, there is a sense of hostility which mut-
ters like distant thunder in breasts which seem
to be silent. Everywhere the winning politi-
cian ; the abrogation of the old, the imposition
of the new law, are looked at by half the na-

J

tion as hostile and dangerous. It knows it is so
looked upon, and is not unwilling to profit by
its opportunity to press down its enemy. A
spirit is engendered which is bad for all, the
conqueror as well as the conquered, for they
both suffer when the true interests of the na-
tion are unheeded, or the council-chamber of a
city erects itself into a little satrapy, above the
praise or blame of even those who placed it
there. It fosters that spirit of chronic revolu-
tion which it would seem we cannot escape ; for
every abuse of power is a prediction of its com-
ing overthrow. But, ground between the wheels
of the two opposing parties, how many delicate
growths of culture, how many duties to cher-
ish those tender germs which cannot attach to
politics, are overthrown and perish !

Never was American good-nature seen to bet-
ter advantage than after the Civil War. Not a

O

rebel chief was shot, not a rebel soldier impris-
oned, after the day of surrender. Scarcely were

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 255

the weapons of conflict laid aside, when forgive
and forget was in the heart of the Northern
people. That the South should sulk and hold
back was but too natural, as their cause was
lost and their fields laid desolate. But rancor
cannot live long in our sunshine ; and the hope-
ful see a happy future for both North and South,
more due to American amiability than any bills
of reconciliation that could be passed. They
have both enough to do to find a place for the
negro which he can keep without the aid of a
Northern bayonet. Every thing is adjusted in
time ; and before long the negro will run with-
out friction in the new groove, and both he and
his former master will forget that it was ever

O

otherwise.

And see our long patience with the shadowy
substitute for coin ! Here, again, our good-
natured endurance of a depreciated currency
must be counted as a fault. While discussing
bi-metalism, and trying to extract from rags the
value it can never have, we see California's
Pactolus pass by our door to enrich the treasu-
ries of rival nations. There is a certain cousin-
ship between the flaccid feebleness of paper
money and the irresolute timidity which pro-
tracts our suffering. As to the sick man the

256 WINDFALLS.

sturdy sirloin which health demands only nau-
seates the sickly appetite, so Americans, used to
paper, look at the solid metal with alarm. Over
the horizon, from time to time, there -is a shine
of yellow, as from a rising sun ; but it is not
morning, and we must learn to wait. May the
good time be not far distant when commerce and
manufactures shall stand erect on their feet, and
then, as the consummation and representative of
that sounder life, may we all look with smiling
complacency,

" Where little eagles wave their wings in gold."
Indeed, without our national amiability, our
republic would be impossible. They mutually
aid and nourish each other, and together make
the most pleasing trait of the American charac-
ter ; but we should guard against an excess even
of the virtues. What is everybody's business is
nobody's. And the want of the tonic of a cen-
tral will in the States and Government but adds
to our weakness. We long to see a hand which
shall dare to launch the thunder against wicked-
ness in high places. Where is the hero who
shall overthrow the* selfish indolence of Wash-
ington, which allows the money paid by foreign
nations for American claims to never reach those
to whom it belongs? Nulla vestigia retrorsum, as

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 257

a motto, better becomes the regal lord of the
desert than the free-born wanderer of our starry
sky.

The dilemma into which our good-nature gets
us has at times a grotesque absurdity. In the
old days of the omnibus, the seats often would
hold a double layer of passengers. Without
asking your leave, a pursy woman would use
you as an arm-chair, nor did you dare to remon-
strate.

A delightful story is told of a dignitary of a
neighboring university being " overlaid ' by a
redundant personage, who eclipsed the daylight
and made his knees like those of Belshazzar.
Of course the ladies are asked first where they
will go. Presently, to his surprise, the dignitary
heard his own house given as the destination of
his personal incumbent ; and then silently, he
through the front and she through the side gate,
each approached the house. The lady was the
dignitary's own cook.

In reading-rooms people lean on us to read
the newspaper over our shoulder. Leave for
five minutes a magazine in a car, and when you
return it will have disappeared. Men with
books and without books will cut from under
you the best hour of the day, and feel hurt if

Q

258 WINDFALLS.

you reserve the right of choosing your own
channel of benevolence. There are societies
which do good, and also organized shams ; and
both prefer for their private use your first hour
after breakfast. All these live upon the sup-
posed inability of a man to say " No." Where
an Englishman would thunder and lighten,
grow red in the face, or write to the " Times,"
an American expectorates feebly and passes on.

Our good-nature is also shown in our unwill-
ingness to damn a bad play. The positive side
is too weak to affirm an energetic opinion. The
piece is withdrawn if the public do not like it.
It may happen to be very bad indeed, and yet
succeed, if good acting, or a caricature having a
basis of truth, are to be found in it.

In some circles, this want of spirit, of passion-
ate personal judgment, gets the name of the
Lively Negative. Fiction has taken hold of it ;
for we cannot help thinking that, in Mr. James's
novel of "The American," the unwillingness of
the American hero to punish even a murderer is
a happy stroke of truth disappointing the reader
of the natural denouement of the story by mak-
ing the hero act as most Americans would.

o

The pendulum descends as far to one side as
it mounts on the other ; and if we laugh at our-

AMERICAN GOOD-NATURE. 259

selves for the "defect of our quality," -a good-
nature which resents nothing, we have abun-
dant comfort in remembering that nowhere else
in the world are the relations of man with man
more easy and good-humored, without pride or
reserve, as bright, gay, and universal, as is the
American sunshine.

260 WINDFALLS.

X.

OTJE. CONTEMPORARIES.

T T 7E may take out of a man's life, a complete
and rounded one of seventy years, the core
or heart of it, say forty years, and call this
fragment of time the active life-space of him
and his contemporaries. We will not count the
beginning and the end of his life outside these
forty years ; for, besides the weakness and soli-
tude which attach to life's extremities, they share
very much the influences from generations pre-
ceding and succeeding them. This manhood,
thus taken en bloc, is one of many lives of peo-
ple of about the same age, all over the world.
These people are usually called contemporaries.
We propose to speak of these contemporaries,
shut up in their bounds of forty }^ears, as a unit.
It seems fair to space off time into such units
for many reasons, the chief of which is, that it
-is a natural unit, a life-measure for the earth's
inhabitants. It is one wave moving to eternity
across the sea of time ; and, like a wave, though
blending with those before and after, yet its

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 261

form and towering crest are its own, and it
has always been counted as one wave. And
this ocean, where lives are waves, has not, his-
torically, the space we usually suppose. Looking
onward from where we are, we see no shore.
All is obscure. Yet we dimly think we guess
something of the movement and form of those
waves of the future which shall pass beyond
our own, and may haply hail some light-house
of the skies that we wot not of. But, look-
ing back to mark behind us the forward falling
waves, as their musical crests break in the sun-
light, we can notice through what long lines of
foam, from what abysses of the past, they draw
their present life of living spray. And how
near is the horizon which bounds Time's ocean
of the past ! beyond and farther than is earth's
bounding horizon of the sea, something we may
guess ef what is hidden ; but silence and an
inexorable barrier defy our curiosity. To show
how narrow is Time's sea to our poor human
sight, let us notice and count these wave-crests
as they have come to us from the past.

The days when Christ was upon earth seem
very remote ; and yet, between Him and us,
we find but forty-seven of these life -spaces,
these waves of contemporary being. Such an

262 WINDFALLS.

observation makes us suspect that the world's
history is much simpler than we have thought.
If we are old, even without being wise, we
must have been unobservant indeed if we have
failed to notice the progress of the world,
the movement of thought, the material advance
in our time. But our time is infinitely more
complex than has been any other such life-
space as we have imagined. The conditions
even are changed. The whole earth begins to
move forward as an army. Rank behind rank,
we see them fall in and come. They are near-
ing the light which is as the candle to man's
moth-like brain ; and, let us hope, not to fall
expiring with singed win-gs, and into an earthly
candle, but that great eternal flame by which
man's soul is nourished. Already is the march-
ing near enough to feel the heat. It already
fuses the metal from which ignorance and
tyranny had wrought their chains. The old
moulds of the gods melt and run down in
shapeless ruin. And, by the new and auspi-
cious light, we see these waves these armies
of men trooping side by side, like children
whose toys are laid aside, whose quarrels are
forgotten, as towards a common Father.
We have compared these life-spaces to waves

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 263

moving horizontally, and we might compare them
to the rounds of a ladder ascending upwards.
If we could compare these periods, one with an-
other, we should be struck with the fuller life,
and increase of knowledge and skill in every
direction now, in contrast with the limitations
of human knowledge under a Roman emperor,
for instance, at the beginning of our era. A per-
spective of the world's history, thus shortened
for the e}*e, would surprise by a diminishing at
the farther end, not attributable to the common
laws of perspective. There was a time when
men were not inventive. There was a time
when men thought little, or, if the}^ did, could
not or dared not publish what they thought.
There was a time when intercourse and jour-
neys between nations were difficult and danger-
ous. Then knowledge was possessed only by
a few, a mental aristocracy, raised by study
and contemplation above their fellows. Then an
author could hardly be said to have a public,
or to aim to express any belief of the people,
or any desire of theirs for improvement. As
long as war was uppermost in men's minds,
there was small room for the fruits of peace to
grow. All these limitations make the diminish-
ing end of the perspective very narrow.

264 WINDFALLS.

And what a little world it was then ! a
luminous track from Asian highlands, along
which cities were sown, and from its western
extremity, where it touched the sea, a fringe of
light girdled the Mediterranean, contrasting
with the surrounding darkness. Now the earth
is furrowed with that mental brightness, and for
the first time begins to know something of itself.

Among the many passions of the present
hour, there is no warmer one than that of geo-
graphical discovery. We hunt and chase the
unknown, as English squires do a fox. We are
close upon the haunches of Africa, and soon
will run her to earth. There seemed to be good
game at the North, a teazing bait in the mys-
terious Pole, but the scent proved too cold,
and the sportsmen abandoned the chase. And if
" Macedonia's madman " sighed after his Asiatic
triumphs for new worlds to conquer, what shall
the heroic Livingstones do when the entire globe
has become their conquest ? Will it not be the
end, and will not that time arrive when a con-
temporaneous completion of all man's possible
achievements here will imply the consummation
of the purpose for which he was sent hither ?
And how many does the reader suppose of these
life-spaces of forty years will the world count

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 265

between that consummation and the date of our
era ? Though the life around us look indefi-
nitely continuous, the end may be nearer than
he thinks. Vires acquirit eundo is indeed true of
the world. Something more than a geometrical
proportion is the pace of thought now, compared
with its uncertain steps in its childhood.

This kindling, swift diffusion of knowledge is
like a highland torch-race ; every beacon-hill is
fired, and man's glowing mastery over matter, in
its most spiritualized form, his telegraph and
his telephone, almost look like a wall beyond
which he cannot pass. But who can tell ?
Though Mr. Proctor explain to us that a catas-
trophe is always possible in the sun, and that
then comes the end of all things, yet this old
world has had many panics of this sort. Because
of famine, religious excitement, or a something
in the air we cannot estimate, these spasms of
man's fear have again and again occurred.

We are in a fair way now to another attack
of this hysteria of the soul. At one end of the
town, Mr. Cook, with mathematical exactitude,
is throwing red-hot shot into the ice-forts of
Unitarianism ; and at the other end, a. pair of
evangelists are incessantly calling off the busi-
ness world to the passionate possibility of losing
12

266 WINDFALLS.

its soul. There is just that something in the air
which may make hysteria an epidemic.

A few steps farther, and this world will re-
cede, and heaven will seem opening to the view.
A date from prophecy will be sought for to jus-
tify the hope and the terror of the approaching
consummation ; and then, in a few years, all this
will be but as a tale that is told.

Some thirty or forty years ago, Boston suffered
from such an attack of hysteria. One Miller, a
fanatic, managed to persuade himself that the
end of the world was approaching. In the very
unmathematical condition of mind produced by
such a fear, many others, beside himself, were
brought to believe that certain figures and
tropes in the book of Revelations indicated the
absolute date of the event. Where these be-
lievers hid their faces and their disappointment,
after the failure of his prophecy, we have never
heard. Error, soaring to the sublime, often falls
into the ludicrous. So was it then. These
Millerites, as they were called, were said to have
prepared ascension-robes, made long from feel-
ings of delicacy, and built a tabernacle, to gather
in upon the fatal day.

From curiosity, I went to see it. I found
before an unfinished and very unsubstantial

OUR CONTEMPORARIES 267

structure a worthy carpenter, whom I knew
well, looking up at it. " Are you, too, a be-
liever ? " I said. " Well," he replied, " I think
there must be some miracle in it ; for I built it,
and they paid me so little that I think that it
will be a real miracle if it don't come down 011
their heads." The city authorities thought so
too, and forbade the completion of the building.
It stood precisely where now is the Howard
Athenaeum Theatre, and I believe some of the
timber was diverted to this unsanctified use.

As we advance to manhood, we see about us
our contemporaries doing the same. Some were
our school-fellows and some our classmates. We
knew them as bright and happy boys, their high-
est achievement the robbing of a bird's nest or
a successful recital, and yet with quick strides
they were becoming men. A sense of alarm, a
natural anxiety, comes over us. We remem-
ber Julius Caesar and the prophets, and King
Alfred and Charlemagne. Each of these had
Atlantean shoulders to hold up a world. But
alas ! for our poor contemporaries ! And then it
flashes upon us, at first with a strange sinking of
the heart, and then with a merry apprehension
of how things really are. And is the whole life
of the centuries, the care for the world's support

268 WINDFALLS.

and progress, to be given to Charley Watson and
Harry Folger ? They were good at ball, and
did not fib much ; but Harry knew a mean trick
or two, and Charley at times was parsimonious
and shabby. But so it is : the whole of the
great concerns of a planet the responsibility
of leading the ages, and transmitting not only
unharmed, but ennobled, what the fathers have
left us are to fall upon the shoulders of these
school and college mates ; and throughout Chris-
tendom it is the same. Sir Robert Peel played
a good game at marbles, and rather liked Byron,
his lively contemporary. Bismarck at the uni-
versity was known by his big dog and the solid-
ity of his walking-stick. Napoleon looked
askance at the games of the other boys, and
Pozzo di Borgo never got over his school impres-
sion of him. And so each one in his turn is
condemned to play the part of greatness, if the
prizes of life fall to him. But, if we look be-
hind the ermine of the judge, we. can see the
timorous fag of forty years before. That gen-
eral, who, on review days, is the centre of ad-
miring eyes, was once fished, half-drowned, from
the water by the plough-boy now standing in
the ranks. That emotional divine, whose breath
is omnipotent with condemnation or approval,

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 2G9

was chiefly known at school for his indolence

V

and enthusiasm for gingerbread.

But these successful men fairly fill the place
of their predecessors. The world looks on with
the admiration that distance gives to their pros-
perity. And it is only at times, over the social
board, that the years will be stripped from these
majestic figures, and the veterans again will be
the boys they were. Then the sly tale, the merry
memory, the joke that punctures the bladder
of renown, restores to them the long-lost play-
ground, and they will sadly feel that the boy's
limitations and ignorance are more than com-
pensated for by the freshness of feeling, the
buoyancy of young desire, for which they would
gladly exchange the weary elevation the world
so much admires.

The earth keeps a journal, and notes care-
fully, with correct dates, each fresh acquisition
it makes in knowledge. This line of conquest
by man over his environment is a straight one.
But there are fluctuations in human affairs diffi-
cult to account for. The hour has its whim, its
caprice, and is not merely the obedient slave of
progress. This caprice and whim, united to the
wisdom and knowledge which a given date
stands for, constitute what is called the " char-

270 WINDFALLS.

acter " of an age ; and each epoch has its char-
acter, and every thing is saturated by it, almost
as if this abstraction were a living being.

We say that a man represents his age, and if
he be a clever one, he will show not only what
the time knew, but how it felt, what it believed
in, and each mood of changeful caprice.

There is always a touch of madness in the
world, which, if we cannot see it in the indi-
vidual, the crowd expresses : semel insanivimus
omnes. Of course, the crowd does not see it
as madness, as each one in it considers himself
sane ; and, among them, a free and sound man
is lucky if he escape with only the title of
eccentric. For there is the passion as well as
the whim of the hour ; and that may carry men
far, and distort a generation. And man, leaving
his track in history, marks not only the sands of
time with his footprint, but with every such con-
vulsion and oscillation, as Finelli's Pompeiian
casts retain each movement of the figures they
mould.

Of course it is easy to see that, of these little
blocks of time and spaces of forty years, the first
half belongs to that part of a man's life when
his nature receives enduring impressions. These,
if he live long, he will carry to the new front of

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 271

thought in the people before him. There he
appears as a straggler, one who has failed like
his fellows to join the great majority. His
figure, his manners, his dress, so lately the best
that man could do, look grotesque, abnormal,
fossil. Children point at him, laugh, and run
away. But they should be taught to make a
better use of their opportunity than that. They
should be told to look at him steadily, and to
try to remember him, for the very sight of him
explains an epoch.

If clever children, themselves long-lived, had
been made to see characteristic survivors of
their generation, and told what they saw and
knew of them, when old, and then had passed it
on to another child, a hoary gossip might have
been transmitted which would bring us face to
face with the patriarchs. As it is, there are
always pleasant stories afloat, piquant souvenirs
of by-gone times and people, which we delight
to hear.

When last at Rome, once after dinner, I asked
Cav. Visconti, the distinguished archaeologist, to
tell me something, not in books, about the past.
He laughed, and pondered, and ended by saying :
" 1 am sure St. Paul had a big nose." "Why?"
I asked. u Well, it has come down to us, trans-

272 WINDFALLS.

mitted from mouth to mouth, that, when the
Apostle's head was struck off and brought to
Nero, he exclaimed : ' By Jupiter, if I had known
he had such a nose, I would not have done it !

There was an old lady in London lately,
named Lady Cork. She always dressed in
white, and looked like a fairy godmother. She
had seen so much, so many shapes had passed
before her, in life's magic lantern, that they got
blended and confused : she would easily mistake
a man for his great-grandfather, and startle
him with a question strangely out of focus with
the present. Rumor said of her that, in her
childhood, she had known somebody who told
her that she had known somebody else's father
who knew King Richard III. Of course, Lady
Cork considered Richard a much maligned in-
dividual.

An Englishman I met in Europe told me
that, when a child or little boy, once in a London
street, a gentleman stopped him to point out a
venerable figure, unlike the others. He was
tall and handsome, with a wig, cocked hat,
breeches, and a sword by his side. " Remem-
ber, little boy, that you have seen General Ogle-
thorpe, the founder of Georgia."

I myself, when a boy in the town of Milton,

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 273

was stopped by a gentleman, and told to turn
and see Aaron Burr ; I did so, and saw painfully
ascending the hill a short, sad-looking, old man
of a regular profile and antiquated dress. He
supported himself, I think, with a gold-headed
cane.

I also, as a child, saw another Revolutionary
personage. There was target filing at Savin
Hill, near Dorchester. The target was set up
in the water, or on the edge of it ; and, for the
first time, I enjoyed the delight of ricochetting
balls. There I was presented to President John
Adams. He, also, was not very tall, but plump ;
and his face was so like his portrait by Gilbert
Stuart, that, in memory, I see them confusedly
as one.

We will speak of a few details of this con-
temporaneous life of man which have more or
less importance. The habit induced by common
manners, common tastes, and common beliefs,
during an epoch, gives a special physiognomy to
the time. Men get to look alike, because they
think and live alike. People really come to
resemble each other, and form a definite type
for a period. Expression is moulded by the
passions and the thoughts within ; and the
same sympathy which makes a husband and

12* R

274 WINDFALLS.

wife resemble each other acts on a generation.
The children of mothers who have lived through
days of revolution and terror differ from those
born in quieter times. The influence of a court
life will make a child courteous and graceful.
A tyranny will stamp itself even on infant
features ; and hours of anxiety will leave traces
upon the young faces whose parents then suf-
fered. Looking at portraits in a picture-gallery,
we are struck with the general resemblance of
those of the same time. All the women of Sir
Peter Lely languish with the same sleepy eyes.
The personages of Vandyke show a common
dignity and grace. The Venetian nobles whom
Titian painted have a simple grandeur of aspect
which we seek vainly elsewhere.

We even see that the men and women of our
own time have something in common which we
do not remark in their ancestors. This is espe-
cially true in America, where a greater uniform-
ity of interest and living gives an increased
similarity of expression. But, in this resem-
blance of persons during an epoch, there is an
element which easily deceives us. The same

/

dress and costume, the hair, or the wig worn in
a certain way, alter men's looks even more than
do the manners or the thought of an age. This

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 275

is noticeable in actors who assume a part belong-
ing to an era not their own. When this is
ingeniously done, a play surpasses the best
novel, describing the same time, for the eye is
made to believe almost without the help of
dialogue. And when the French give us a good
historical play, even the student of the time
represented can learn something from the car-
riage and demeanor of their good actors. It is
then we notice how the costume seems the
natural clothing and expression for the lives
which then were lived.

In literature, this changing aspect is very ob-
servable ; for not only do certain tastes and habits
of thought go with certain dates, but fashion is
added. The fashion of saying things, in prose
or verse, is formed by imitation of successful au-
thors. The more is their style moulded by the
whim of the hour, the more is it successful then ;
yet liable, in an equal degree, to be distasteful
to the men who come after. And this is a
reason why so many gay pinnaces and showy
galle} r s lie stranded upon the shores of time,
while the renowned and venerable frigates bear-
ing names of enduring fame, still keep unharmed
the mighty deep. There is scarcely any lure
more potent than the lure of a great master of

276 WINDFALLS.

style. It dazzles and subdues, while insipid
writers retire abashed ; and this is why old men
who have surrendered the fashion of their dress,
and something of their manners, to the coming
time, will yet keep their allegiance to the favor-
ite authors of their youth, and condemn as trivial
and poor the new writer whose lure is to be a
successful bait for the young generation. There
is something which draws our pity as well as
makes us smile in the vanishing worship of
these veterans, of whose youth we have known
so little. They flaunt the rags of sentiment, the
false pearls of poetry, before our eyes, in deplor-
able keeping with the grotesque suits they some-
times wear. We all remember, moving about
our streets, these sadly comic effigies of the past.
We find it difficult to believe that it was once
filled with such scarecrows. And, when we
talk with them, we find it still more difficult to
believe that their tawdry flowers of speech and
antiquated politeness should ever have been
taken seriously. But they probably know noth-
ing of all this. These quaint survivals of the
past glow for them with life's morning, and their
very accent betrays the buoyant fervor of youth,
as they recite the verses they have so long
loved. Dr. Holmes, who touches every thing

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 277

with such a wise humor, gives us the natural
feelings of a boy, noticing one of these venera-
ble anachronisms, in a poem, " The Last Leaf."
And yet how hard it comes to us to believe
that our thoughts, our dress, and manners shall
soon become as antiquated as his.

The vanity of old age, though natural per-
haps, is amusing. That youth and beauty
should be giddy seems proper and right ; but
that so airy a sentiment -as vanity should attach
to weakness and decrepitude is at first sur-
prising. But these old men look askant at each
other as do rival belles over their fans. Getting
successfully to be old is sometimes the chief
performance of a man's life. And stupid people
have, of course, the best chance.

Genius

" Which o'er-informs its tenement of clay "

wears out the body as the sword does the scab-
bard. But these dull brains leave the body's
machinery to work at ease, without fever or
disturbance. Old Father Cleveland, whom we
all respected, had this vanity of old men. When
asked if he was perfectly happy, being so well,
he replied : " Yes, indeed ; but they tell me
there is an old fellow down in New York, who
is one hundred and five, and he makes me feel

278 WINDFALLS.

uncomfortable." The good man himself died
within a month of being one hundred. It
would seem as if the excitement of nearing and
turning the centennial winning-post was too
much for him. And missing this, he must have
considered his life comparatively a failure.

An amateur statistician, in England, has given
himself the trouble to hunt up as far as he could
the facts as to the authenticity of lives famously
long, of the past and present time. He discov-
ered, in every case accessible to him, that no
life surpassed a hundred and five or six. The
great age claimed for some individuals rested on
a mistake. The parish register of birth was
never forthcoming ; and senile vanity would
slyly add a ten where there was no witness to
expose the error. He found, I am sorry to say,
that the object of Father Cleveland's emulation,
an Englishman living in New York, was not
really one hundred years old. This sceptic
found the date of the old man's transfer as a
soldier to a point in India, and his age then
also : there was a mistake of about ten years.

It reconciles better the young to die when
they see very old men ; it is so evident that
they have outlived, not only all enjoyment,
but any real use of their faculties. There is

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 279

nothing to tempt any desire for a protraction of
years in which there is so little gain. Without
sometimes such a spectacle, it might be hard
to reconcile youthful manhood to death. Its
bounding pulses find little to exchange with
senility, in the contemplation of the dignity of
years, or the gentle dismissal through impercep-
tible degrees of withdrawal into the arms of
Mother Earth.

And yet one of the many objects of man's
foolish longing and desire is that of protracted
years. Lord Lytton is said to have had it ; and
he has a novel, " A Strange Story," which turns
upon the possible possession of it. Such people
sigh when they hear of Cornaro, the Venetian,
and the playful Lady Desmond, who, in the
spirit of the King Charles II., whom she came
to visit, on her way fell out of an apple-tree, at
the age of one hundred and forty. But, most of
all, these lovers of life are covetous of the good
old days of the patriarchs : when they read of
Abraham and Jacob, and, most of all, of Methu-
selah, they wish they might have lived then.

Modern Physiology and Science could tell
them that such post obits were impossible : the
machinery of man's frame could never have lasted
so long. The Bible never mentions as miracu-

280 WINDFALLS.

lous the age of the patriarchs. The word year
probably stood with the Jews for a division of
our year ; or there were, as was natural with so
uneducated a people, miscalculations concerning
periods of time.

The accident, if accident it be, which makes
the earth's revolution on its axis small spaces of
time, divided by darkness and light, that on the
shortness of man's life, gives a man a measure
both of time and space, which he cannot help
applying to conditions too great for such a
measure. Like an insect on a wheel, which
must compute the revolution of its tire by what
it can know of bigness, so man's brain shrinks
appalled from spaces whose vastness crushes
him.

But time and space are nothing in themselves.
Their vastness belongs to the eye of the specta-
tor. We really cannot imagine a universe lim-
ited either in time or space. In this boundless
infinity, it is impossible to imagine any cen-
tral point where is placed the throne of an

omnipotent God.

The grandest conceptions of Christian Di-
vines are scarcely more reasonable than Homer's
notion of the throne of Zeus, whence depend
the golden chains to which our globe is fastened.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES. 281

Much easier is it to imagine the deity diffused
through his works, present in the life of every
plant and animal, and in whom man's soul
moves and has its being.

This is intelligible, so far as can be man's
apprehension of what is so infinite ; but the
heart of man cries out against it. It needs
what it calls a personal God ; and this is easy
to understand. For this world always offers a
spectacle which explains it. Here crowds avail
nothing. The SAveet or malignant forces of
nature avail nothing. There is for evermore a
majestic individuality and solitude for the race.
Each one is alone, even in crowds, with no ques-
tion to ask of them, or even of the dumb earth
about him. But, for evermore, each in his soli-
tude knows but himself and that other he cannot
understand, but feels in his soul to exist. Ever
are these awful interlocutors speaking to each
other, God and the individual soul. There-
fore, seeing His omnipotence, having faith in
His love, he must give the something with
which he converses a personality like his own.
Never can man's conception of God escape
anthropomorphitism ; for the whole universe can
tell man no more of Him than he finds in his
own soul. That has the same relation to the

282 WINDFALLS.

spiritual side of the common Father, that man's
intelligence bears to the intelligent method of
God's creation. Both mirror Him. Both show
us to be His children. And, though the body
perish and the intelligence note with interest
these waves of being, these spaces of time which
we have been considering, the soul looks clown
upon it all from the infinity to which it belongs,
that home of which neither space nor time is
a part.

A BROKEN HEART. 283

XI.

A BROKEN HEART.

TN the State of Virginia, not many miles from
Fairfax Court House, there had been built
one of those stately mansions which were then
so numerous in that State. It spoke of that
loyalty of which, afterwards, the dwellers in
it grew ashamed. But the house would not
change with them. One saw at a glance that
its architecture was derived from an anti-
type familiar to the English gentry of the days
of Queen Anne. It was substantial, simple, and
elegant, and rested upon broad blocks of stone
which hinted at a spacious and useful cellarage.
In these temperance days, people are not
proud of their cellars ; no man stores in wood his
Madeira, his claret, or his port ; but it is getting
to be the way with the unbibulous moderns to
purchase as occasion demands their wines of the
nearest merchant or grocer. But those were
roistering days which knew not those dreadful
facts of the inner man that the microscope and
science have disclosed. They thought less, and

284 WINDFALLS.

drank more. Not that this mansion was espe-
cially renowned for hospitality. Stately dinners
at stated times would be given to retain the
family's position in the county ; but there was
something too much of that Virginian hauteur
which befriended the lofty eminence of Wash-
ington, and fenced it from a too democratic
approach. It was current in the county that
the family of Maiiwaring valued themselves
upon an English and aristocratic connection ;
and they were proud to show proofs of it in
certain dingy family portraits, embossed dishes
of silver, wearing a complicated coat of arms,
and antique pieces of furniture quite old enough
to have dated from King James.

The body of this fine old place breathed of
English steadiness and conservative tranquil-
lity ; but the out-houses, the veranda, the gar-
den, betrayed that conjunction of America with
Africa which generally marks the buildings of
the South. The wooden pillars of the veranda
did not quite match those of the portico. They
stood awry, and betrayed fissures which prom-
ised to widen. The out-houses tailed off in a
decreasing line of mysterious boxes of wood,
not always of the same color, and leading, by an
irregular path, to the half-concealed huts of the
slaves.

A BROKEN HEART. 285

In short, it was like many of the proud
structures of which the James River and other
favorite sites could boast ; and, in this tale, it is
but thus sketched, for the reason of its connec-
tion with a narrative with which it has little in
common.

Very often, the chief men of the House of
Burgesses drew up near the front-door, or offi-
cers of the royal army, among whom might have
been seen the rosy face of General Braddock,
and a young aid from the neighborhood of
Mount Vernon, whose future promised some-
thing of distinction. To such, when they came,
those honors would be paid of the absence of
which the lesser gentry of the neighborhood
occasionally complained.

After the preliminary glass of apple-toddy
was despatched, and they remained to dinner,
it would be composed perhaps of an aromatic
and substantial wild-turkey from the neigh-
boring woods. Succotash and Indian-corn kept
company with their compatriot ; and if iron
forks with but two prongs held the luscious
morsels, no one was ashamed. Then a more
mahogany glow would pass into the counte-
nance of the valiant General, either reflected
from the table whence the cloth had been

286 WINDFALLS.

withdrawn, or imparted by the mettlesome
port which stood in bulky decanters not far
from his right hand. And then the clear
brown complexion of the aid showed no deeper
tint than what the sun gave ; and, as his elder
grew the more hilarious, the thoughtful silence
of the younger man but more visibly deep-
ened.

But when Lady Manwaring, as she was some-
times called half mockingly, sailed into the low
drawing-room, where, past the shining andirons
of brass, a great wood-fire sent a sudden flicker
across the broad panels of the room and its
depending curves of carven garlands above it,
the hostess was not long in wakening the slum-
bering animation of her younger guest. She
then with subdued ostentation pointed out the
figures in the picture-frames, placing herself at
times so as to give an opportunity for the
observer to remark a resemblance between her
and the least hideous but most ancient of the
female heads, giving the names, the dates of
birth and death of each, the young officer being
visibly interested.

For the miniatures, of which there were
many, fair, pale women with pearls passing
through their powdered hair, and their heads

A BROKEN HEART. 287

deliberately askew, their eyes sinking in slum-
ber, or the valiant men in bag-wigs and queues
which suggested the handle of a gridiron, while
their braided breasts wore that fatal red which
to the waggish gamin of our time hints of lob-
sters, he did not much care.

But when, after carefully passing a napkin
over the antique cabinets, tables, and escritoires,
she gave their history, a flash of delight sparkled
in the quiet eye of the younger officer. He
asked all about them, begging the privilege of
opening and shutting the little drawers, and
finally ending with the curiosity of youth by
pushing about to try to detect if there were not
a secret one.

Thus, by ever so little, this great man missed
a discovery which would have diverted the cur-
rent of our tale.

For fading through the long years, its modest
splendor slowly changing with a nameless tar-
nish, a degradation as much felt by those who
lived there as visibly expressed in every line of
the falling mansion, still, with sturdy pride,
something of the old pretension remained. Lit-
tle by little, the estate had been parcelled out to
newcomers, to patch a rent in the year's income.
The ragged garden had lost its sun-dial, its

288 WINDFALLS.

dove-cote, and half its palings. Not only was
the sentiment of newness dead, but that of
repair was following after it.

But the cellar, as if blind, for want of light,
to that ruin which the outside felt through all
its stones, recklessly retained its hospitable
completeness. Burgesses and royal officers no
longer drank of its nectar ; but the Madeira
and Port, gaining through the long years by
which all else was losing, stimulated a rebel
soldiery, welcomed by a host whose ancestors
overhead seemed to stare out in reproving aston-
ishment. At last, after a health to the Presi-
dent of the new Confederacy of the South, there
was such a breadth and ardor of sympathetic ad-
hesion that the dinner became a debauch. While
the prostrate wassailers on sofas and lounges
were stertorous with oppressive sleep, a candle
from which one of them had lit his cigar was
carelessly overturned so near the window curtain
that it burst into flame. Nor long was it before
the roar and crackle of the fire had awakened
the sleepers. The glare and confusion reached
even the bedroom of their hosts, and, with a
face like Lady Macbeth's, the last Lady Man-
waring entered with a superfluous lit candle in
her hand, and cried :

A BROKEN HEART. 289

"You tipsy fellows, you have set ray house
on fire ; but I have no time to scold you. Fly
before it is too late, and save my pictures and
furniture,"

As he slowly rose from the floor, the least
sober of the guests hiccoughed out,

" Don't forget the cellar ; I will look after the

wine.'

Amid a circle of ragged negroes and their
children, their faces turned to gold in the flam-
ing light, the devoted mansion, unhelped by
any show of a fire-engine, after consuming,
perished where it stood.

The property which had been saved was
covered with sheets and blankets ; and a few of
the honestest negroes were detailed as guards
for it. Meanwhile, the succor and hospitality
of neighbors were not wanting. The family
were solicited, in spite of their haughty airs
generally, to stay at more than one house. They
selected a near one, to give the less trouble in
the storage of the many articles which were
saved from the fire.

The tipsy soldier had been as good as his
word, and, with the help of some of his compan-
ions and a few negroes, had triumphantly borne
out and placed under a tree, most of the wine-
13 s

290 WINDFALLS.

boxes and a regiment of bottles which, in long
file, were drawn up with the uniformity of
soldiers. The safety of the silver was presided
over by Mistress Man waring herself ; and, when
she drove away to her friend's house, it was
carefully placed in the carriage beside her. The
old furniture was not so fortunate. Hoisted
out upon the brawny shoulders of the soldiers
and the stoutest negroes, it was got downstairs
and out upon the lawn, in an almost dislocated
state. While endeavoring to disguise the -ill-
usage the favorite escritoire had received, by
shutting the drawers which had burst open,
and standing it squarely on its legs, one of the
soldiers noticed a little door which opened into
a concealed recess which he remembered had
not been visible before. Half hanging from it
was a packet carefully sealed, and tied with a
string of faded red. It was long and narrow ;
and, I am sorry to say that, in that moment of
general demoralization, the half-tipsy soldier,
supposing that its contents were possibly bank-
bills, put it into his pocket. When in a safe
place he examined it, to his disgust he found it
to be nothing better than leaves of paper upon
which were written, with an ink so pale, charac-
ters of so antique a look, that he did not long

A BROKEN HEART. 291

puzzle himself with deciphering them. As pos-
sible literature, of however unimportant or ab-
normal character, it naturally gravitated to the
North. Some Union soldier who by chance saw
it exchanged a square of tobacco for the MSS.,
in the hope, as he had so few books, that the
reading might enliven a lonely evening. Find-
ing both the writing and dates of an ancient
period, he brought it home with him and sub-
mitted it to a member of the yill age's Historical
Society, if we may name by so august a title a
lawyer or two, and the clergyman of his parish,
who met together, brought by their taste for
ancient lore. Through their help, the little
story the manuscript contained is here getting
published, though with no better authenticity
than its own internal evidence, and this not very
praiseworthy explanation of how it came into
the possession of its previous owner.

The writing was evidently of about the begin-
ning of the eighteenth century ; and the date of
the following letter accords with that supposi-
tion. Around the manuscript which in its
general character resembled a journal, though
no dates were given was rolled a letter of a
different paper and of a writing unlike that of
the manuscript. It seemed intended as an ex-

292 WINDFALLS.

planation, in some degree, of this strange nar-
rative, and of how it came into the writer's
possession :

" THE PRIORY, 1709.

On parting with my dear Isabel, I requested
her to write to me when opportunity offered.
The dear child gladly consented, feeling through
this that our long friendship would but grow
the closer. But neither of us apprehended the
infrequency of the mails from so distant a sta-
tion ; and the final impossibility of any such
intercourse, when my dear Isabel with her father
was wrecked upon that unknown island, thus
transforming her letters into a journal.

From a child, Isabel had been of a poetic and
romantic character. Her imagination made her
wish to see things wonderful and strange. In
the verses she had shown me, her fancy took
marvellous nights ; she was not contented with
the beautiful country around her for her descrip-
tions, unless she peopled them with sprites and
fairies. She delighted to recite the most ex-
aggerated portions of Master William Shake-
spere's play, ' Midsummer Night's Dream ; ' and,
of a truth, I think she would have preferred the
Duke's court at Athens to the allurements
offered by that of our good Queen Anne. I do

A BROKEN HEART. 293

not like to think her distempered ; but if her
wits had suffered through the incidents of ship-
wreck and the penury of comforts which fol-
lowed it, I could gladly make allowance for
unintentional untruth.

But, loving my dear cousin so well, I have
been careful to not submit her fair reputation to
calumny by any publication, as she desires, of
her story, or even permitting the reading of it
by many.

Isabel, after her return to England, was much
tamed of her extravagance. No longer enthusi-
astic or ardent, she buried herself mostly in the
privacy of pensive thought. When I questioned
her as to the details of her experience, she
gave it in the fewest words, without color or
emphasis. There seemed something which she
disliked to reveal ; and, thinking this modest
quietude might be owing to a painful remem-
brance of the extravagancies she had written,
I respected her silence, and but loved her the
more for it.

I have placed, with this letter of friendly ex-
planation, her manuscript, for safe-keeping, in
the little secret recess of her own writing-desk,
which she said she rarely opened. I thought
this best, as meaning that I too would withdraw

294 WINDFALLS.

from all complicity in a painful memory, silence
about which her own brevity of speech had been
for me an intelligent indication. If she should
press the little spring and discover the manu-
script, I know her delicate spirit well enough to
feel assured that she would understand what I
have done.

As from the moment I dispossessed myself of
this strange narrative, I forbore ever more to
question her concerning it, all that she cares
to conceal is now left to the solitude of her own
breast.

I place this letter with the manuscript of
my friend, for the purpose that if both should
fall into unknown hands, and not those of my
dear Isabel, I desire to give her reputation the
authority of my name and with it an assurance
to any who may chance to read it of her natural
truthfulness and unblemished character with
all who knew her well.

LADY BETTY FAULKLAND."

" DEAR LADY BETTY, Our leave-taking, as
you must remember, was painful to both of us.
I was to lose my dearest friend, and could only
add her loss to that of my native country.
Those who were to be my fellow-passengers, all

A BROKEN HEART. 295

unknown to me, could not disturb the solitude
of my grief. But you have a life abundantly
filled, and its solicitations would mitigate while
not effacing any memory of me. My comfort
was in my dear father, who seemed happy to be
once more at sea. He busied himself in prepa-
rations for his duties at the distant station to
which government had appointed him. He also
relaxed himself from labor by perusing various
books on natural history and the works of Mr.
Locke. The happiest hour of my day was when
he threw all these aside, and, if the weather per-
mitted, walked with me, arm in arm, on the
.deck for a full hour. His protection gave me
confidence to observe a little more narrowly the
few fellow-passengers who were with us. They
all treated my father with a certain deference,
as their station in life was almost universally
inferior to his own.

There were one or two East Indians with
whom I established a certain intimacy. They
had inhabited the part of the world we were
going to, and, seated in the shadow of the main-
sail, I listened eagerly to their strange stories of
adventure, and the extraordinary creatures they
had seen and shot. Among them was a young
man who had formerly been a secretary to one

296 WINDFALLS.

of oiir colonial governors. His attentions and
deference were not unacceptable, for he gave
them usually a useful turn. He would find for
me a place where the wind or the sun were
least unpleasant ; he would bring me wraps and
books from below ; and he even charged me to
consider him attached to my service as a body
servant.

Not that there was any thing of the menial
about him. He was always gentlemanly, and
even shy till I taught him confidence. But I
protest, dear Lady Betty, that you will not im-
agine there was any thing more than that two
young people who, meeting by chance at sea,
could for each other alleviate a little the annoy-
ances of shipboard and the weariness of a long

vova^e.

i/ O

My father had brought with him from Bristol
a negro slave to be a servant for both of us.
His name was Congo, and he seemed pleased to
think that our voyage would bring us nearer to
his native land. At times, in his broken Eng-
lish, he told me of .the great woods, the long
grasses, and the tropical fruits he remembered.
He tried to describe the frolics and chatter of
the monkeys which were to be found not far
from his native village. They would leap, he

A BROKEN HEART. 297

said, from tree to tree, hanging themselves by
their tails, and one kind could dispense with any
hold, and fly across with wings which they had.
But he confessed to me that his approach was
never sufficiently great for him to explain their
manner of flight, and I concluded, somewhat re-
luctantly, with the belief that what he had seen
must have been a bird.

It is not to find only what we leave at home
that we travellers go so far and endure such dis-
comfort. I am sure that before I return I shall
have seen not only wonders in the deep, but
those singular beings of which the books in my
father's library have given accounts. And this
monkey which could fly recalled to my mind
what Richard Steele told me he had heard from
a visitor to America. He reported that there
were there many creatures different from those
we know, even when they resemble them. And
I remember he spoke of seeing squirrels which
by the help of a membrane could, like the mon-
key, fly from tree to tree. This set me to much
thinking, and I conjectured how little as yet we
understand our fellow-inhabitants of the globe ;
and I thought also how narrow is the line which
divides the orders of animals. If a quadruped

can fly, what differences may I not yet expect to
13*

298 WINDFALLS.

find between what I have been told exists, and
beings which we would think impossible yet
really are. And before long I was again to be
reminded of this invasion by one creature of the
rights and habits of another. The good ship
' Monarch,' our captain told us, was a lucky
vessel ; and so it proved. For ten days, the
wind blew steadily in a direction favorable to us.
I was rarely uncomfortable and never sea-sick.
Already the air was warmer and the sea of a
richer blue. I was one day at a little table on
deck playing at chess with my father, while St.
Glair, my young friend, overlooked my game,
and secretly whispered his advice as to my
moves. I was not impatient with him for doing
it, as I knew my father's- skill was great enough
to easily match both of ours. I suddenly heard
an exclamation, and the passengers ran to the
side of the vessel. With woman's curiosity, I
followed them, and there, to my surprise, saw
five or six small but beautiful fishes flying
through the air as with a long bound, and then,
after moistening their wings, immediately resume
their flight.

And as if wonders would never end, after sail-
ing south several days more, I saw the strangest
thing in the world. I am unwilling to write of

A BROKEN HEART. 299

it, as it seems, if I tell you what I saw, playing
upon your credulity. But you must not believe
your little Isabel shapes monsters from her
heated fancy ; for indeed neither fancy nor im-
agination had any thing to do with it. From
what my father and the officers of the ship tell
me, what we saw was as really miraculous as
any real wonder of earth can be. My father
tells me that such a creature as we saw is be-
lieved to exist by the people of Norway, and
that an ancient writer, Bishop Pantopedon,
gives an account of it. While sailing over a
windless sea, or rather with just breeze enough
to fill our sails, we gently approached something
unusual moving upon the water. Whatever it
was, it seemed to take no notice of us ; but
when we got within a quarter of a mile of it, we
could see that it was a school of whales which
at first we thought were playing with each
other. But among them was something long
and dark which, though slowly moving, we
could perceive had an undulating motion. Pres-
ently it showed itself to be an enormous snake ;
for by a sudden movement it shot its head and
some thirty feet of its body, directly into the
air. Soon after its head and neck disappeared
in the sea, and we saw it in the act of coiling

300 WINDFALLS.

itself round the body of one of the whales,
which seemed inert and defenceless in that terri-
ble embrace. But with the other whales there
was great agitation ; they spouted the water
and lashed the foam on all sides : but nothing
could they do to make the monster relax his
hold upon the whale which had been seized ;
and very soon both whale and serpent disap-
peared downward in the ocean, and as long as
we looked never returned. One would think
that there was such affliction as we feel for the
loss of a friend among those which remained of
the school of whales. Their grief and conster-
nation was very intelligible, and they stayed,
moving about the spot whence their friend had
disappeared, as if in the hope of his return. But
when they found their expectation was vain,
huddling together, as if in terror, they swam
directly north till they disappeared behind the
horizon.

I tell my incredible tale in as few words as I
can, for I conjecture you will give little heed to
it. What does not make naturally a part of our
mind and its beliefs is soon dismissed as an
unwelcome stranger. And if I can fix your
interest upon my narrative by such events as
this, why should I weary you, as I myself was

A BROKEN HEART. 301

wearied, with the penetrating monotony of so
many of our blank days. To watch the long
leagues of floating grass which is always sta-
tionary here, as the sailors tell me, as if detained
by the eddy of sea-currents, just as in a brook-
let you may see straws immovable or circling
in an eddy outside the stream ; to watch the
sharks who would follow us like so many evil
spirits ; or, as we came nearer the Cape of Good
Hope, to discern a speck in the sky which com-
ing nearer and nearer showed us a huge bird
with expanded wings which the sailors called
an albatross, all this, and more of the like
which I could tell you, would be for your curi-
osity but insipid fare after the combat of mon-
sters I have narrated.

The ' Monarch ' put into the little town's harbor
at the Cape, for stores and water, and my father
and I profited by our week's detention to make
an excursion into the country. We there be-
held creatures of which I had heard, but never
before seen, when we encountered a party of
hunters returning southward from a successful
excursion. We saw the skins of what had been
once four majestic lions, and even this covering
inspired terror. There is something in the set-
ting of the eyes, the broad and powerful nose,

302 WINDFALLS.

and the look of strength without meanness or
cruelty which the mouth has, which made me
wonder little that it is called the king of ani-
mals. There was a camelopard, which I should
have thought impossible if I had not seen it.
It seemed to slide from its timid-looking head
and incredibly long neck, down past its sloping
back and slender haunches, as I have seen no
other animal.

But what interested me most which the hun-
ters brought with them were a few negroes
and their children. They were as much below

V

Congo in good looks and intelligence, as, I may
say, if you excuse the expression, he is to
ourselves. Their hair was not like Congo's,
but more like the feathers of a bird : each hair
is flat, not round, and grows in a great mop
over their dull faces. They were quite short,
and their arms were so long that, while looking
at them, I could not help thinking of some gib-
bons I once saw in Kew Gardens.

After leaving the little town, we were un-
usually fortunate in our weather, as there, they
tell me, storms prevail very commonly. Not
only the weather. was mild, but the wind was
favorable ; and, until we entered that fatal
Indian Ocean, both sky and sea gave us little cause

A BROKEN HEART. 303

of complaint. We were hastening to the end of
our long and not uneventful voyage, and for this
reason I began to love the ship more than ever.
I felt an unwillingness, hard to explain, to change
our little round of daily life for new scenes and
a country I had never visited. But my father,
to whom a voyage is an old story, was braced
to a new activity among his papers ; and I could
discern, by his alertness in walking, that he would
not be unhappy to enjoy a more extended prome-
nade. And my pleasant friend St. Clair also was
changed. An expression of anxiety came into
his handsome face which I had not seen before.
Though, during our long voyage, I had felt
his kindness more and more, till our intimacy
grew into a habit, and we were to each other
for the time as brother and sister, he now ap-
proached me with a coldness I could not fail to
observe. He would be as obliging as ever to
attend to my slightest wish ; but there was a
constraint in his manner of doing it, and no
longer, as before, a bright smile accompanied
each act. He was preoccupied and absent ; and,
without imputing to myself vanity, I could
but suppose he regretted the approaching day of
our separation. There would be a void in his
life, and he felt it, as I supposed ; but, dear

304 WINDFALLS.

Lady Betty, I was not prepared for the kind of
interest with which it appears I had inspired
him.

"We were sailing on a moonlight night within
sight of the mountains of Madagascar when
after quizzing him upon his indifference and
coldness, he told me all. With no intention on
his part, our simple and natural relations were
sowing the seeds of a regard for me, of which,
while I was unconscious, he himself had not
known the strength, till the pain of separation
startled him with its proximity. As he told me
of his feelings, I could see that he also was sur-
prised at the violence of the passion of which
they spoke : yet there was so much humility in
his earnestness that I could not chide him ; but,
while I forbore this, I instinctively knew how
to make his distress more brief by an explicit
explanation of the impossibility of his suit. I
besought him to. try and forget it, or to think of
it only as a dream. His humility and absence
of self-importance assisted me in this : I think he
really felt that I was by nature beyond his reach.
And so presently, though, as I could see, not
without controlled anguish, he tried to resume
the friendly intimacy, the brotherly solicitude,
which had been my happy portion till now.

A BROKEN HEART. 305

My dear friend, you will readily suppose that
it was not without self-reproach and tears, of
which I feared the morning might show traces,
that I condemned myself for an affability and
too great friendship which I should have known
would never suffice with what I remember I
have heard you call one of the encroaching sex.

Our excess of fine weather we paid for very
shortly by a terrible change. We had got about
midway over the Indian Ocean when most un-
expectedly one of the terrible storms of that
climate broke upon us. All was confusion in a
moment ; the sails broke from their lashings, spars
were snapped, and the cry of the sailors as they
pulled at the ropes was heard above the storm.
It passed away as suddenly as it came. Our
captain cheered us with the good news that there
was no leak and that the injury incurred could
be sufficiently repaired. We all came again on
deck as the sun recovered his kingdom which
the powers of the air had usurped, and congratu-
lations and smiles took the place of despondency.
But our joy was of short duration ; for it was
discovered that the violence of the shock had
parted the rudder-bands and that the vessel's
power of steering had gone. Efforts were made,
I believe, to replace the rudder and secure it by

T

306 WINDFALLS.

ropes and chains, but the success was only par-
tial. We drifted under easy sail on a smooth
sea, which the chart, an imperfect one, showed
to have no land nearer than many hundred
miles. After the agitation and fright the storm
caused us, we slept soundly till the morning
broke. I heard then voices giving orders and a
trampling of feet, but nothing which I thought
alarming. Wakening my father, after dressing
I went on deck, and was fixed silent with sur-
prise.

Very near us was land. I could behold lofty
trees, surmounting ranges of cliffs and great
hollows through which the eye pierced to gentle
vallej-s of tender green enamelled with flowers.
But turning a face of inquiry to the captain, I
was struck with his expression of despondency
and mortification.

4 How beautiful it all is ! ' he said, ' and
what a lovely sunrise ! Do you notice how
well the ship sails ? '

Observing by the land our position, and hear-
ing no sound of waves as they passed us, I found
that we were perfectly immovable and still.
4 Our brave ship " Monarch," continued the
captain, ' is expiating her good fortune ; we are
fast upon the reefs of that beautiful island,

A BROKEN HEART. 307

which I find not marked upon any of the three
charts which I have examined.'

I saw by his face that he thought there was
no danger for our lives, and that he waited so
patiently in the hope that the tide might float
the ship, the wind change in our favor, or that
the sweeps which he was then essaying might
free us from our dilemma.

Hours passed, and there was no change, save
one that was ominous. There was a look in the
sky, as the officers told us, which boded no good ;
and as the vessel might break up with the re-
turn of the tempest, and as evening was coming
on, reluctantly the captain ordered the boats to
be manned, and every thing got ready for a
night upon shore.

It was decided, however, finally that my
father and myself and a few others should go
under charge of the mate, while the rest re-
mained in the vessel, trusting that the fair
weather might continue. We took a few gar-
ments, a tool-chest, and a barrel of flour, and
a small parcel of jerked beef ; for there was room
in the boat for no more. The captain thought
it his duty, as did his officers, to keep by the
vessel, at least till there were further signs of
danger. The passengers were few, and felt such

308 WINDFALLS.

reliance upon the captain, they preferred to risk
remaining rather than meet the chances of a
land, of which they knew nothing.

The passage in our boat to the shore was most
easy ; we found the beach accessible, and of
snowy whiteness ; beyond it were low cliffs
overrun with vines, and scooped here and there
into natural caverns. Into one of these we at
once entered, and placed there our stores ; then,
returning to the boat, William Cudworth, the
mate, exclaimed, ' Oh, we have forgotten the
guns, and the flint and tinder ! I will go fetch
them.' Before very long, he had returned with
the boat so deeply laden, he alone being in it,
that I was surprised. He confided to me
afterwards that he did not share the captain's
confidence in the hope of continuing good
weather. He had therefore, without difficulty,
been allowed, on the plea of my father's
comfort and my own, to bring as many useful
articles as the captain cared to spare. How
useful they were to be, I could not then guess ;
but Cudworth had been shipwrecked himself,
and knew the things necessary to take.

As darkness came on, to my surprise I saw a
lantern shining brightly in the archway of the
cave's entrance. The bedding necessary for my

A BROKEN HEART. 309

father and myself was placed, so that no damp-
ness would strike through us from the ground.
Indeed the warmth of the climate made the
lightest clothing most suitable, as it also kept
the surface of the ground so dry that I had no
fear that my father would suffer from any return
of his lumbago.

The boat was drawn from the water by the
assistance of all ; for to encourage the men, and
make light of our situation, I pretended to pull
with the rest.

We all slept well after our fatigue. The gen-
tlemen of the party, the next day manifested a
desire to see something of their island, to find if
it might profit us by its products, or held any
animals which might be dangerous. The mate
urged them to go, taking the precaution to have
their arms with them, and not to venture into
dark places or thickets. He proposed to stay
behind with me, taking note of the condition of
the ' Monarch,' and meanwhile trying to make
our cave more habitable.

The first thing he did was to cut down sev-
eral trees of moderate size, which he lashed to-
gether at the ends ; and conveying these from the
topmost trunk by a stout rope above the top of
the cave, he fastened it to a thick tree which

310 WINDFALLS.

grew just behind. He called this his portcullis,
and said it was to be let down at night by
loosening the rope, and thus, as it extended
nearly to the top of the cave's entrance, it would
be a secure barrier against any wild beast or

savage.

4 1 do not know if there are any,' he said to
me ; ' but I think none are enterprising enough
to try and leap over it. Should they do so, I
will add more logs, and try to enlarge that fis-
sure in the ceiling of the cave, through which
you can see quite a piece of blue sky.'

Having done this very expertly, he had time
to fashion a rude table sufficient for our need,
but which, he said, should be superseded if he
had the luck to discover a jak tree on the
island.

For my part, I busied myself with arranging
things as best I could. To my surprise, the
mate presented me with several of my father's
books, and I was fortunate enough to have among
them some which related to the Natural History
of the tropics. The information was scanty,
but it might be of use, situated as we were. I
busied myself then about breakfast, which we
had agreed to postpone till noon ; and my skill
was so little, and our means so limited, that I

A BROKEN HEART. 311

was quite discouraged. I was just hoping the
salt-beef was getting tender in the boiling water,
when I suddenly heard an exclamation. I in-
stantly ran out, and found our friends returned
and not far distant. There was a merry peal of
laughter ; and one held up for me to see a couple
of hares, while the other was so encumbered
with an armful of fruits that he could only dis-
play them by a rocking motion which made me
laugh as well as the rest.

'Quick!' I said, 'and prepare for me a hare,
or our breakfast will be behindhand.' It was
soon done ; and the office of cooking it fell into
better hands than mine. The mate was always
going to a little recess in the cavern over which
a sail was spread, and taking from under it
utensils and dishes just as they were wanted.
I got to believe that, like strollers I have seen,
he could draw from his storehouse any thing if
he wished it. But he whispered to me it was
not so ; that his kitchen was not complete, and
that he must venture again to the ship for more
supplies.

Our breakfast was of good augury: for we
were all made cheerful by the confidence that
our island was stocked with abundance of game
and fruits ; and we could see from the strand

312 WINDFALLS.

that there were fishes of some size moving
about.

' Captain Manwaring,' said the mate to my
father, 4 you have now an opportunity for add-
ing to your knowledge of Natural History ; for
I see by the books I have brought, and which
your daughter has so prettily arranged there with
flowers on each side of them in the little niche
in the rock yonder that you are a student of
such things.'

'Yes, Cudworth,' merrily returned my father,
' I can give you the scientific explanation per-
haps ; but you, I know, are already learned by
experience in these torrid regions. I, by seniority
and position, if it please you all, will appoint
myself captain of our little party; but. I make
you my first lieutenant, and rely upon it that
most of the work shall be yours.'

There was a general assent to this, and then
we all went down to the shore to see the mate
depart in his boat. The sea was still calm,
but at times irregular puffs blew across it ; and
we noticed that the ' Monarch ' was loosening
her sails as the wind came from the land, in the
hope of disengaging the ship from the reef. The
sky was blue, but not clear: it had a troubled
look, like a face out of which all the bad temper

A BROKEN HEART. 313

had not gone. I felt an anxiety I could not
explain, and I urged Mr. Cudworth to press the
captain and passengers to join us.

4 Tell them how comfortable we are ; and, if
they are not obstinate, I shall see you return
with them.'

We saw the dingy arrive, and a rope, which was
passed over the stern and was fastened to it,
and up which the mate sprang like a cat. But
it was long ere he returned, and then so slowly
that I knew he must almost have stripped the
galley to get more material for his storehouse.
He said the officers remained confident that
with the freshening shore-wind, and the rising
tide, the ; Monarch '-would be soon afloat; the
captain had promised him that, if he was so for-
tunate, he would anchor in deeper water, and
fire a gun for us to learn the good news, as a
signal for our return.

Night drew on, and while the second hare
turned on its spit, the mate gave the name of
the various beautiful fruits which my father held
up, telling him which was the most palatable,
and rejecting those either unsavory or poisonous.
There had been time for several little cakes to
be made of flour, sweetened with the juice of

the cocoanut : this gave a superiority to the
14

314 WINDFALLS.

dinner over the breakfast which well became so
important a repast.

With a tAvinkling eye, as a conjurer will draw
something out of vacancy, so the mate drew fur-
tively from under the table-cloth a sound bottle
of wine, upon seeing which, my father's eyes
sparkled, and he said, ' I see, lieutenant, that you
mean that now I should drink your health in a
glass of old Canary.'

So saying, the cork being drawn, a little wine
was poured into each glass, and my father rising
said, i To the health and happiness of Lieuten-
ant Cud worth and that of all our party, and to
our future good fortune in the beautiful island
of Fortuna. As it is on no chart, I venture to
christen it so, if none of you object.'

This set us in a merry pin, and for a half-
hour we almost forgot our brave 4 Monarch ' and
our absent friends.

If I may judge by sounds I heard, there was

good sleeping in our cave that night ; but for

.myself I could not close my eyes for thinking

of the painful intimation I had received from

the look of the weather. Nor was it lono- after

O

midnight before a sound, which I at first thought
was the ringing in my ears, steadily increased
till it became a tumult of noise. The heaven

A BROKEN HEART. 315

seemed to open and show us its burning depths
bej^ond. Fire fell through the sky like a cata-
ract, which the sea extinguished. The forest
behind us, for the wind still came from the land,
moaned like a creature in pain. Mixed with
the hissing of the rain and the roll of thunder
was the crash of falling trees. They were borne
through the air, and the cliff under which we
were sheltered resounded with the shock. At
times the cry of a wild animal, shrill with fear,
rose above the tumult ; and, as the lightning
flashed, we could see the darkness white with
the wings of birds, which, like leaves, the tem-
pest drove out to sea.

When the lightning glared, we turned our
eyes toward the ship, and to our delight saw she
was still there. All were afoot and ready for
the worst, for the day of doom seemed at hand ;
and vet it was almost still where we were. But

V

if any ventured, as they did, to go beyond the
circle of calm the beetling precipice made for us,
with difficulty could they retain their footing.

Fortunately, the storm passed away as speed-
ily as it came. The mate said that in those seas
storms would recur after short intervals, the
wind blowing in a circle, and that it was his
presentiment of this return that had made him

316 WINDFALLS.

so anxious for the captain and passengers to
come on shore with him.

The stillness was so deep after the tempest's
departure, that our sleep was profound. But
the sun in those latitudes is imperative, and for-
bids that longer rest in which elsewhere we
should have indulged, while the anxiety for the
fate of the 4 Monarch,' which went to bed with
us, again was felt as our eyes opened. We in-
stinctively ran to the water's edge and gazed.
Where the good ship had been was a blank
only. There were no wreck or floating spars, so
that our sadness was mitigated by hope. ' She
had been driven before the gale,' said the mate,
' and if not too much injured by the rocks, she
can keep the sea ; and in good time, I trust, we
may see something of her again.'

Half-assured by the mate's comforting belief,
we set about the labors of the day, and found
in occupation a relief to painful presages. We
advised Cud worth to take Congo with him and
explore the island, knowing that the familiarity
of both with these regions would be more prof-
itable than any search by all the rest could be
without it. So having instructed those of us
who remained as to little matters we could ac-
complish, taking each a gun, they both departed.

A BROKEN HEART. 317

Having leisure on our hands, my father took
me a short excursion along the shore. We had
not gone very far before we noticed a fringe of
cocoanut palm-trees, which my father conject-
ured perhaps encircled the whole island. He
said it was often so, the sea-air being favorable
to their growth. They leaned over the water in
groups of two and three, sometimes very prettily ;
many of the nuts were floating on the water, torn
off by last night's wind, and caught in shallows
or stopped by the outlying reef. Many trees were
prostrate, and we thought that, sad as it was, the
wood of these and that of many other uprooted
trees might be made serviceable to us.

There were other caverns and hollows in the
cliff like our own ; and the convolvulus hung on
high in graceful festoons, its flowers made bright
by contrast with the darkness of these natural
arches. I gathered many flowers, of great
beauty but little scent, which were new to me.
There were orchids in abundance, however,
which I did recognize ; and once, as we
passed a narrow valley, I saw, disturbed by
our presence, a wild pig dash from thicket to
thicket. By the shore, we found several dead
fishes of extraordinary forms and variegated col-
ors which the storm had killed and the return-

318 WINDFALLS.

ing tide had washed on the beach. We did not
venture, as my father had taken no gun, into
the interior: but our walk was sufficiently beau-
tiful, as it was ; and by the end of an hour we
had returned to our cave, not wishing to make

o

the others anxious for our safety. My father
rested himself upon the broad roots of a huge
tree not far from our cave, and read aloud to
me from one of his books interesting relations
of tropical scenery and its inhabitants. We vis-
ited the second cavern to make sure that the
rest of our party was comfortable, and to hear
with what patience they had endured the terri-
ble night. We promised them a fair portion
from our stores, and that they should have their
full share in what we possessed.

An outcry, which I recognized as coming from
Congo, soon brought us back, and, making a
circle, seated upon the grass, we listened to the
story of the returned explorers.

Familiar with tropical wildness, and un-
daunted by danger, the mate and Congo had
penetrated far inland, till arrested by the per-
pendicular rocks of a lofty mountain, whose
sides were clothed in verdure. Mr. Cud worth
had seen many things of much import to us, in
the way of wild animals and fruits. He had

A BROKEN HEART. 319

descried in dark relief against the sky, from the
jutting mountain, the figure of an elk, indeed
quite a flock of them. He had noticed low
grounds where the tamarind was growing, and
felt the full value of the discovery. He had
beheld birds which looked fit for eating, and
indeed had brought home several. They were
of the size and somewhat the look of a par-
tridge, each with a rosy tuft on its head.
And, as he handed me these, he drew from his
ample pocket a fine pineapple and one or two
plantains, assuring me that where these came
from there were plenty more to be found. He
said he had hopes also of discovering bananas,
as they were often found with the plantain ; and
that wild rice might be met with, perhaps, in the
more marshy places.

When with pride I told him of my excursion,
and the glimpse I had had of the wild boar, he
said it was really good news ; for the animal,
if properly cooked, was very palatable. But
he had reserved for the last his greatest sur-
prise.

Upon a shoulder of the mountain, or rather a
high plateau beneath it, he found lofty trees
growing, whose stems soared without a branch
to a considerable height. Where the branches

320 WINDFALLS.

forked, some forty feet from the ground, there
were huts constructed of wood in a rude man-
ner, and covered with leaves. Before each hut
was a platform. A number of these huts con-
stituted a village. But who or what the inhab-
itants might be he could not imagine. He
noticed that from each hut depended a ladder of
vines, something like a knotted rope. He es-
sayed by pulling the strength of one of these,
and even thought of trying to ascend by its help
to the hut above, to find if or no it were
empty ; but he thought it imprudent, and won-
dering all the while, for he had never seen any
thing like it before in his voyages, he slowly
withdrew. He had not proceeded far, when,

hearing a noise, he turned his head and stood

*

rooted to the ground in astonishment. The
whole village was suddenly alive, and almost
every platform before each hut occupied by a
figure unlike any thing he had before seen. He
said to himself: 'These creatures must be mon-
keys, but never before have I seen any so human
in their appearance.'

They were but slightly covered with hair,
and their skin was not browner than his own.
Their faces had little of the malicious ugliness
of the ordinary monkey, but wore an expression

A BROKEN HEART. 321

of dignity and intelligence. Their hair, as is
the case with certain other kinds of monkeys,
flowed from the crown, and fell in curls, not
without grace, upon their shoulders. The fe-
male monkeys mostly remained inside the huts ;
but, excited by the universal movement, some
came to the platform with their young upon
their backs, and he saw that their hair was
much longer than that of the males. Both
sexes seemed to be sensible to the pleasure of
ornament ; for necklaces and bracelets, appar-
ently formed from sea-shells, hung upon them.
Some wore bright leaves, and others flowers of
gaudy color in the hair.

All these villagers, as the mate could not help
calling them, were in great excitement. They
gesticulated plentifully, and chattered, not with
the usual shrill cry of the ape, but with sounds
of variable accent, expressive of the emotion
which they felt. That emotion was unbounded
astonishment, not unmixed with fear, at the
sight of creatures so much resembling, and yet
so different from, themselves. The forest rang
with the noise of their conversation ; for each
one seemed anxious, either to question or ex-
plain the meaning of this wonder. Some in

their excitement, like sailors, nimbly ran down
14* u

322 WINDFALLS.

the cordage of their airy habitation, and seizing
each a staff advanced timidly towards the mate
and Congo. But, at the distance of not many
yards, they stopped and looked at the strangers
most inquiringly. They made friendly gestures,
and each one sought to encourage the other to
advance. Seeing this, the mate and Congo
proceeded together, with smiles on their faces,
holding out some of the fruit they had gathered.
This, after some delays and a visible look of
timidity, was accepted and eaten. Some of the
creatures then disappeared, but swiftly returned,
bringing, as if in exchange, fruits of their own.
These which Cudworth recognized he partook
of in sign of good-will, which so emboldened
the animals that they came up with confidence,
and, expressing in their faces a curiosity like
children, passed their hands over the persons of
their visitors. They felt the buttons of their
coats, the leather strap of their powder-horn,
and at length rashly extended their hands to
the guns. These, with a smile, were put out
of their reach ; though, as Cudworth explained,
he was sorely tempted to enjoy the astonishment
which would be produced by a discharge, he
forbore, fearing the rupture of an intercourse
he desired to continue.

A BROKEN HEART. 323

After tliis, with many salutations, which were
returned, the mate and Congo waved their hats
to the distant colony, which was replied to by a
salvo of uproar and good-natured sounds which
he thought might stand for 'good-by.' Then
accompanied by a few of these creatures, and
with a wave of his hand, pointing to their leafy
village, indicating his desire for their return to
it, they began their home journey.

Deskous as I had always been of seeing the
wonders of creation, I confess the mate's nar-
rative filled me with surprise. I suspected him a
little of a wish to entertain us at the expense of
the simple truth ; but my father did not think
so, and amused the circle with facts concerning
monkeys which he had heard in his travels, or
obtained from his books.

Of a kind of monkey called the Papion, he
spoke in a way which made them nearly related
to the creatures the mate had beheld. The
Papions rob gardens, collect in bands, and then
form a chain from the vineyard to the nearest
mountain. Those in the vineyard pass the
fruits by the line to the place of meeting. To
escape the vengeance of the proprietor, they
place sentinels, who, hearing any noise, give a
cry of alarm. They then all fly and disappear.

324 WINDFALLS.

If any monkey is caught, it is said the sentinels
are put to death by the band. This explains
the howls the colonists hear sometimes when the
band has got back to the mountain. And if the
place whence the cry comes is visited, the dead
bodies of several monkeys are found torn in
pieces.

And of a more common monkey, the gibbon,
he reported that it has a cry like a child, and is
the only animal which, like a child, trembles
with joy or spite according as one gives or re-
fuses what it desires. Their natural disposition
is very affectionate ; they kiss persons whom
they love with surprising transports.

My father had heard of the Kahau, whose
brain closely resembles that of man ; and who
has a long and slightly curved nose, giving him
the profile of a human being ; and of the Manga-
bey he said, they could dance on the tight-rope
with a balancing pole, and hold a book, which
they will place on a table, and turn over the
leaves as if disgusted with its contents, and it is
reported of the Alonate that, when wounded, it
receives succor from the rest of the troop, who
chew leaves, and make a poultice which they
apply to the wound.

My father said he remembered these particulars,

A BROKEN HEART. 325

mostly got in conversation with natives of the
islands of the East, because he had always been
struck with a similarity which the tribe of
apes bore to man, possessed by no other animal.
But though the foregoing particulars brought
these creatures nearer to us, still, their brain
has an incapacity for progress, or they would
heretofore have approached us more nearly. He
was attentive to watch if, hidden somewhere in
the great Oriental Archipelago, there might not
be found creatures who had made that stride
towards humanity which might suggest a new
explanation of our origin. He thought it diffi-
cult to believe that man lived in a solitude of
his own. He shares so much with other ani-
mals, and, in structure, the ape is especially so
like him, that it seems reasonable to suppose
that the gulf might be bridged, and that human
vanity must content itself with being at the
head of the order of beings here, without claim-
ing such a superiority as destroys the harmony
of nature. This idea, he said, is not a new
one, the ancients held it, giving us tales qf
creatures intermediate between beast and man,
but residing so far from observation as to be
counted fable.

Hanno, the Carthaginian, when on his famous

326 WINDFALLS.

voyage round the cape of Good Hope, saw such
men of the woods, and he gave them the name
of gorilla. My father said he had always
hoped to meet a gorilla, or some of these wild
men of the woods, that he might know if they
were capable of understanding us, had an intel-
ligence enough like ours to be able to make
progress in thought and civilization.

These ideas of my father went with me as I
retired ; and in dreams, which were by no means
unpleasant, I saw such a creature as my father
longed for, receiving from him instruction, and
sharing in his affection.

There was much mystery, about this time, in
the actions of Mr. Cudworth. He was evidently
preparing additions to our comfort, for I could
hear the sound of the saw and the hammer in
the little leafy covert over our heads which he
called his workshop, and which he said he had
chosen so as not to disturb our tranquillity in
the cave. And a day or two only had passed
when, asking me to look after a net that he had
contrived from cords, he took me a little way
by the sea, and explained as he went the
method of its making. He had bent a flexible
sapling in a circle for the mouth of the net, and
had placed some dazzling material, mingled with

A BROKEN HEART. 327

bait, at its bottom, which he kept nearly even
with the water by means of a small sapling
which he had made to incline by stones attached
to it. The net was placed where the water was
deeper than on the shore, owing to a crag which
jutted into it. From this crag we could see, to
our great content, fishes of good size moving
about in the net, having been decoyed through
the hoop by the brightness which always at-
tracted them. Removing the cords from the
tree to which the stones were attached, the
sapling rose erect and placed at our feet a dozen
beautiful fishes. I insisted on carrying some
of them home, to which after readjusting the net,
Cud worth consented.

We were glad to give this surprise to our
party who must weary of eating nothing but
fruits and game.

4 1 am sure you are tired,' he said, 'and you
had better seat yourself while I clean and pre-
pare the fish ; for we must keep our island-home
as tidy as possible. Come and I will show you
where.'

So saying, at no great distance from the cave,
in a little hollow sheltered from the sun by over-
arching boughs, up whose trunks the mimosa
climbed, while orchids festooned their feet,

328 WINDFALLS.

a place I had already known and loved, and
whither I used to withdraw, as Cudworth must
have seen, with my books, or for meditation, to
my infinite surprise and delight, I found at this
favorite spot a large and comfortable form made
of a pretty yellow wood. It was close-grained,
and shaped with not a little care. Seeing my
expression of pleasure, Cudworth said, c This
is the jak-wood I have been hunting for ; and
you are to have the first trial of its merits.'

So I sate on the seat made for me, in a happy
reverie, watching him at times, as,' at a little dis-
tance, with stooping figure and skilful fingers,
he prepared the fish.

' As we have more than we want to-day,' he
said, 4 1 shall let them drag in the water from
a string to keep them sweet and fresh for future
need.'

When he had finished, and I was relieved of
my fatigue, as we went home, I thanked the
mate for his kindness in thinking of me, and
assured him it was the very prettiest form I had
ever seen.

4 Yes,' he said, 'the wood is much valued in
the East, and in Ceylon the natives plant it
about their dwellings. It takes a fine polish,
and darkens with time, so as to resemble rnahog-

A BROKEN HEART. 329

any. But this poor work is nothing to what it
shows when one has something more delicate
by which to display its full beauty. Come, let
me show you something better than that.'

So the good kind man takes me, as we reached
home, into the cave ; and just where I usually
sit, and the light is softened of its glare, I found,
placed upon a beautiful little table, my own dear
familiar desk ! We had been inseparable till
lately, and all my treasures were in it. Not
only, dear Lady Betty, were there, nicely tied
in a parcel, all your letters to me, but those
foolish verses of mine which you were kind
enough to praise, with a few wild-flowers from
dear old England which had not wholly lost their
scent or color ; but what, situated as I was, was
almost better than all, plenty of ink, paper, and
the materials for Avriting.

4 1 suspected before, Mr. Cud worth, that you
were a magician ; and here you have given me
full proof of it.'

4 It was not magic at all,' he said, ' that I
observed your attachment to this little desk.
Remembering your happy face when seated so
often at it, was it not very natural that, among
more homely objects, my boat should find room
for this one ? '

330 WINDFALLS.

As lie took it so easily, I forbore from fur-
ther extravagance of praise ; but I am sure he
saw how grateful I was.

The next morning, after saluting my father,
with, a book I wandered into the open air, and
instinctively found myself beside my precious new
bench. What was my surprise to see placed
upon it some bananas, a cocoanut, and a pine-
apple, all prettily covered with a slip of vine to
which the flowers still adhered. 'And is Cud-
worth turning sentimental,' I thought to my-
self? ' This seems like the act of a lover. Ah
no ! he is not foolish enough for that : it is only
his considerate kindness which wishes by such
things to enliven my island prison.'

Still I thought it best not to question him,
nor was there, when I returned home, any expres-
sion in his face which betrayed that he had such
an alarming secret.

But every day after this, I found a repetition
of this mysterious homage. The fruits were dif-
ferent, but they were always excellent and ripe.

I loved my little unavowed mystery, and sate
complacently reading my book, while, from time
to time, I would taste of a mango or a pine-
apple. But the fourth day, thinking I heard a
sound, I suddenly turned my head, and saw

A BROKEN HEART. 331

gliding between the trees behind me until it
vanished, an unfamiliar figure. My first thought
was that it was one of the sailors from the ship
which had disappeared, and that perhaps, afraid
of his reception, he had brought daily as an of-
fering these fruits, in the hope to be permitted
to stay with us. So, trying by a quiet approach
not to alarm him, I followed after. I had not
gone far when I saw a creature wholly unknown
to me, which stood timidly, apparently to dis-
cover if I threatened it any injury.

Then I remembered what Congo and the mate
had seen, and how their expressions of good-will
had met with a friendly return. There was
something very kind, yet very grave, in the ex-
pression of the countenance of this creature. It
made me brave enough to go close to it, and
offer the fruit which by chance I held in my
hand. It was accepted with an expression of
pleasure ; and> while it was being eaten, eyes of
much meaning and interest were fastened upon
me. Then suddenly it fell upon its knees at my
feet, and, touching the hem of my dress, kissed
it gratefully.

I then made to it a friendly gesture, and return-
ing to the form beckoned it to follow. This it did,
not without some show of alarm ; and while I

332 WINDFALLS.

sat, respectfully it stood at the bench's farther
end. Though I tried by patting the bench with
my hand, and imitating the act of one sitting
upon it, I could not induce the animal to take
the offered seat. As this made mutually our
situation awkward, taking up my book, and mur-
muring a few words of farewell, of course un-
intelligible to my new acquaintance, I returned
to the cave.

On looking back, before the trees hid the fig-
ure, I beheld it still standing in an attitude of
respectful curiosity.

After lunch, I privily told my father of all
this, while taking him apart to one side. He
was greatly interested, and said that unques-
tionably this must be one of the inhabitants
from the village which the mate had visited ;
and, if so, he was really anxious to see the creat-
ure and discover if there chanced to be any pos-
sibility of instructing it, if it were capable of
instruction. I told my father that, if he would
come with me the following morning, I had little
doubt that we should see it hovering about its
gift of fruits to observe if they were noticed or
enjoyed. He promised to do so, and I went to
sleep with that hope of adventure so cherished
by a young heart and brain, and which in our
situation was so natural.

A BROKEN HEART. 333

\

The next day, to my surprise, I saw the creat-
ure seated at the bench's end ; but it instantly
rose and fled on beholding my father. It was
not without solicitation of voice and gesture,
that we induced it to return ; but at length it
did, and even accommodated itself upon the
bench, but with a look as if ready for flight.
My father sat carefully by its side without seem-
ing to observe it, after having shown his good
will by friendly words whose meaning and tone
no intelligence could misapprehend. He then
quietly displayed, as if for ends of his own, his
pocket-book, tracing with his pencil lines he
had written there, and giving to each letter its
appropriate sound. He exhibited from its inner-
pocket a few coins and bank-notes, but still the
timidity of his companion was not dissipated.
But at last when he took out his repeater, and,
after showing its face and the works within to
the evidently admiring gaze of the stranger, he
touched the spring which made a little carillon
tinkle in the air, and then repeated the action
while holding it to the ear of the friend he de-

O

sired to win, the latter started up with a shrill
cry of delight.

After withholding it for a while with motions
expressive of care in its treatment, he relin-

334 WINDFALLS.

quished the watch, while still holding the chain,
to his visitor. Again and again turning it on
every side, and examining the works, in the en-
deavor to discover the secret of the activity
within, he made signs that he desired to hear
once more the music it contained, which my
father, with a smile, willingly granted. After
that, taking up each of the fruits in turn, my
father caressed them, and then, holding them
at arm's length, slowly repeated their names.

After doing this two or three times, interroga-
tively pausing to look into the face of his com-
panion, he held each in turn close to him, again
reiterating its name. To the satisfaction of both
of us, after a few awkward attempts, his scholar
succeeded in producing sounds which in a degree
imitated those my father had made.

This seemed a sufficient lesson for the first
day. Therefore we both rose, and after divid-
ing, as an encouragement, with his new pupil the
fruits he had brought, we pointed in the direc-
tion we were to go, saying, ' Good-by.' This
sound was imitated better than those preceding,
and so we took our leave. My father was much
encouraged by his success ; and hoped, if these
imitations of the human voice were not merely
mechanical, to finally reach by them the in-

A BROKEN HEART. 335.

telligence of the creature, and obtain thereby
results which might prove a triumph indeed.

The next day we were all busy with a project
the mate had conceived of hoisting the British
flag upon the highest point of the island acces-
sible to us. Cudworth was quite equal to the
occasion. He sacrificed an old sail which had
worn so thin- that it could float in a gentle
breeze, and had instructed me how, from the
juice of berries which served as paint, to imitate
the Union Jack. He, in the mean while, was
busy with his axe in stripping a solitary tree
upon the mountain's crest which should serve
for our flag-staff. He ascended, not without
difficulty, by the help of the branches, and then,
stripping the tree of its topmost ones, he let fall
a lanyard, so as to lower and hoist his flag at
will. We could see from an open space near the
camp the flag of England floating free to the
breeze, and enjoyed the sight. My father re-
marked that such an emblem was the sign of
possession of the island. He therefore, in the
name of Queen Anne, solemnly took possession
of it, under the name of FORTUNA.

All this was done at an early hour, and when
it was over I hurried to my favorite nook and
bench in the hope of finding my sylvan friend.

.336 WINDFALLS.

He was nowhere visible, but had given the best
proofs of his visit by a more ample gift of fruits
and flowers than ever before. I thought per-
haps he had sufficient intelligence to have dis-
covered our occupation, and reason enough to
suppose that it must involve our absence.
This was corroborated the next day, when my
father and myself took care to be early on the
ground for fear of losing him altogether. In
the midst of the heap of fruit he had brought, a
little toy-flag was placed at the top, with suffi-
cient resemblance to our own to lead me to infer
that he thus expressed his notion of our ab-
sence. We showed pleasure at the sight of it,
and, taking it from the fruit, waved it in the air;
and finally my father placed it in his button-
hole, as if to express that the flag stood for us ;
for the idea of country it was naturally impossi-
ble for our visitor to understand.

My good father was quite serious in his en-
deavor to teach our mature scholar if possible.
He selected, from a grammar one of the sailors
chanced to have, the letters of the alphabet and
words of one syllable. These he would pro-
nounce in turn, marking upon the ground with
his cane the form of each letter as he did so.
Then, handing to his scholar the cane, he would

A BROKEN HEART. 337

by gestures invite him to do the same. After
some blundering, he caught the idea, and with-
out much difficulty succeeded in a suitable imi-
tation. Then my father showed him the same
letters in the book he had brought, and with
pleasure he saw they were recognized. We
had many misgivings that our attempt would
be fruitless ; but fortunately /though the creat-
ure had the inexperience of a child, its intelli-
gence had the full stature of manhood. This
made our task mote easv, and there was some-

/ '

thing moreover of eagerness and pleasure in the
expression of this savage which showed that he
brought all his faculties to the task. If I may
say so, his look and action implied a delight as
if at the filling of a void which had been op-
pressive. He seemed to feel that what we did
was for his good, and would help to make us
better friends. But it was many days before
he had any clew to the connection between
these signs and thought. My father would
write the words which described some simple
action, and then perform the act it repre-
sented, at the same time slowly pronouncing
the words which indicated it. Then, with the
utmost alacrity, our intelligent pupil did the

same ; and, this being repeated many times, the
15 v

338 WINDFALLS.

words and the act were associated together in
his memory.

Nor did we confine ourselves simply to teach-
ing. Having told all our party of our surpris-
ing visitor, they took much interest in him, but
forbore showing themselves till our companion-
ship was better established. But we thought
the mate's acquaintance with him indispensable
to success ; and, coming as he did alone, there
was small difficulty in accomplishing it. After
that, Mr. Cudworth, with my father and myself,
launched our boat, and invited ' Sylvain. ' to
follow. My father had thought of this name
for him, and had made him understand it to be
his by placing his hand on my shoulder while
speaking my name, and then doing the same by
him and, saying ' Sylvain.' His enjoyment of
the use of the oar, easily got by imitation of
the mate, it was delightful to behold. He was
strong and graceful, and really made a very
respectable sailor ; but my father went farther
than that, for he expressed discontent even with
his best success. So one morning, having
hinted to me of his plan, he persuaded the mate
to find for him a complete suit of white, and a
little sailor's hat ; having taken these to the
place of rendezvous, the mate disrobed himself,

A BROKEN HEART. 339

and explaining how the clothes he had brought
were to be used as well as he could, he then
slowly resumed his garments. The poor fellow
was very awkward in these unfamiliar weeds,
but succeeded in doing as the mate did, and
clothing himself from head to foot. He was
then placed in the boat, and as he rowed, little
inconvenienced by this summer suit, he saw by
our expressions of satisfaction that we now con-
sidered him a complete sailor, and no longer a
wild man of the woods. As the awkward feel-
ing wore away, we noticed in his carriage and
bearing that look of pride which made us cer-
tain that he accepted his outward resemblance to
my father and the mate as a sign of progress.
When our interviews were over, his clothes were
taken from him, and carefully put in a dry place
with a stone upon them ; for we knew that it
would be impossible for him to return to his
fellows thus clad without a commotion in the
village which might do him harm. But he took
care, every morning that he visited us, to take
the dress from under the stone, and wear it in
token that, so far as he knew how, he wished to
be one of us.

After some time, his progress was singularly
rapid, as if the means of communicating his

340 WINDFALLS.

thought by speech and writing were something
which the spirit within him had waited for ; and,
as he succeeded in making himself understood,
a new expression came into his face correspond-
ing to the idea or the actions they expressed.
Here was evidently a brain imprisoned and un-
happy, now rejoicing in a freedom it had not
known. We might have thought a benumbing
spell had chained his faculties till now, so much
did he express daily, not only of delight, but of
respect and content in himself.

My father, more fortunate than most enthusi-
asts, had accomplished something which others
would think impossible. He gave himself
wholly to the pleasure of the task, and con-
fessed to me privately that his zeal was inflamed
by the hope of exhibiting to the rest of our
party what no one before had accomplished,
the training in speaking, and even reading, of a
creature seemingly excluded from such benefits.
In every way possible, my father encouraged
and praised his scholar, making him understand
how his study had brought him nearer to a level
with ourselves, and fit for the companionship of
Christian men and women. He showed Sylvain
one day a stout knife of many blades, and ex-
plained to him that it was a prize he should

A BROKEN HEART. 341

win if he passed a favorable examination before
the friends who were with us.

He was all attention, his eyes riveted upon
the beautiful object whose use was explained to
him. As he recited, the knife was placed in
full sight, and whenever his eyes lifted from his
task they were fixed longingly upon it. When
my father thought his progress sufficient for
the trial, he brought, one by one, each of our
party near the bench, and placing them on the
ground, after bidding them to abstain from any
rudeness and to cheer each success with encour-
agement, told Sylvain that his friends were
ready. Certainly no scholar at Oxford or Cam-
bridge ever had for the most brilliant display a
result more satisfactory. As Sylvain first drew
each letter of the alphabet upon the earth, and
then gave it its appropriate sound, afterwards
rising to the proper pronunciation of words in
two syllables, and finally ascending still to the
writing and utterance of whole sentences, the
surprise which might be called amazement and
their cheerful congratulations showed his vis-
itors' content in the exhibition before them.
When Sylvain had shown all he could do and
the display was over, my father rising with
much solemnity, in the name of all the learned

342 WINDFALLS.

professors present, handed him, with an en-
couraging smile, the much coveted knife.

The pleasure, visible in every motion, which
Sylvain expressed at finding that knife secure
in his pocket, made us think, that, mature as he
was, he retained enough of the school-boy to
share in what an English boy could so well un-
derstand.

The days now were pleasant, yet passed with
a certain monotony. Fresh excursions into the
interior were made, and our larder profited by
them, and often the explorers brought back game
and fruits which we had not procured before.
But the aerial village of man-monkeys still
remained the greatest wonder we could boast
of. Its inhabitants established a certain rela-
tion with us, and were no longer alarmed at our
presence ; they sometimes made, as had Sylvain,
excursions in our direction ; but this they did
rarely, seeming still to share some undefinable
fear. We supposed they might have heard the
sound of our fire-arms and been terrified by it.

My father's lessons to Sylvain continued with
great regularity ; both teacher and pupil shared
an enthusiasm justified by the progress that was
made. Not many months had elapsed before
Sylvain could converse in a way to be under-

A BROKEN HEART. 343

stood ; and, having a dictionary of words, we ex-
plained them to him, and found no difficulty in
making such words as described objects which
he saw, or feelings which he felt, intelligible to
him. Quite often, I shared as a spectator in his
studies and recitals. His pleasure at my pres-
ence was made evident in the most simple and
natural manner. He showed me great defer-
ence, and addressed to me the little phrases of
compliment and respect which he had at his
command. I confess, dear Lady Betty, that,
coming as they did from a being who mentally
was so much our own creation, I was touched
and affected by these proofs of intelligence and
friendship. One day, to the surprise and grati-
fication of us both, he placed upon the form a
miniature model of the boat in Avhich we some-
times allowed him to go with us. It was very
cleverly done, and manifested a skill in con-
struction and imitation which we could not sup-
pose he possessed.

On another occasion, seeing we were pleased
with this, he produced an ingenious repetition.
in little, of one of the huts, with its platform, in
which his companions resided. It was very
amusing to witness him, with one leg crossed
over the other in imitation of my father, ab-

344 WINDFALLS.

>

sorbed in a book which he held before his face
as might any scholar of one of our universities.
He looked neat and even handsome ; for we
had taught him how to wash his clothes and
keep them in good order. He even had con-
trived out of some leaves and twigs to make a
hat for himself with a wider rim than had the
little sailor's hat we had given him. This pro-
tected his head from the sun ; and, after that, he
kept the other merely for excursions on the
water. He took much interest in the fishing,
and before we were up would secure those
caught in the net, and had them ready prepared
for breakfast. He was of much request, also, at
the oar, and made several excursions with our
party into the interior. The first time he heard
the sound of a gun, he showed much terror, and
ran away ; but, seeing that the rest were quite
calm and collected, he returned, showing shame
at the fright which lowered him in our eyes. It
was only after he had made one or two excursions
with our men that he dared to discharge the
fowling-piece ; but, finding he was not hurt by
it, he soon took much pleasure in the act, and
his skill was so great that he rarely missed the
object he aimed at. We explained to him the
nature of the gun, and made him load his own

A BROKEN HEART. 345

piece, and clean it out with moss after the dis-
charge. He never got over his surprise at see-
ing fire come from the flint, but he carried and
caressed his gun as if it were something, though
unintelligible, which he was proud to be able to
use. He knew the haunts of beasts and birds,
and became, as a sportsman, a valuable addition
to our number. We encouraged this diversion
as well as that of rowing, knowing that this
relaxation of the brain would be profitable to
his studies ; for he displayed weariness when
his lessons were protracted, as was natural for a
brain so little accustomed to mental labor.

My father began to notice something of un-
easiness and depression in Sylvain, when I was
not present at the usual lesson. He attributed
it to the possible mortification he felt that I might
be indifferent to his progress, or careless to wit-
ness his continued advance. When I did ap-
pear, his ardor was evident, and he began to
look at me with something in his eyes which I nat-
urally attributed to his desire that I should think
of him, not only as a ripening scholar, but as
one who was daily more nearly becoming my
equal. His expression was a mingled one of
pride and anxiety to please ; thought and study
had so far humanized his aspect, that it seemed
15*

346 WINDFALLS.

quite natural to forget his low estate, and trust
a manhood which became pleasantly apparent.
My father thought that he ruminated perhaps
too much over his new acquisitions, and that
thought bred in him that melancholy which
seems inseparable from the gift of intelligence ;
but it was not till fully three months had elapsed
that we both recognized in him the dawn of
something more than intelligence.

After we had explained to him as well as we
could what we knew and believed of God, that
part of his being which had relation with rever-
ence and faith suddenly expanded as a flower
might after the chill of an arctic winter. We
taught him to pray, which he did devoutly, with
folded hands ; and, as he slowly spoke the words
of that prayer our Lord has dictated to us, there
came into his face such a look of awe and aspi-
ration that my father exultingly whispered to
me, ' He has found his soul ! I am sure he must
have a soul.'

Always, after that, he expressed in his coun-
tenance, and even by his gestures, the gratitude
he felt for the great gift we had made him. It
was friendly, filial, reverential. He explained to
us that he wished to know better what was
written concerning the Deity. He would repeat

A BROKEN HEART. 347

after me, as I sang the words of a hymn, each of
them in a slow chant, and as if measuring their
meaning and importance. He never tired of
entreating me for more, till I had exhausted my
store of them. Those he loved best he got by
heart, and at times repeated after he had prayed.
This led me to think that the beauty of poetry
might be within his reach. I recited lines from
Mr. Milton and William Shakespeare which de-
scribe the grandeur of external nature or the
passionate intricacies of human feeling. He fol-
lowed me as one rapt and inspired, and seemed
peculiarly exhilarated by the lilt and measure of
the verse. As it were, all the dumb feelings with
which Nature had endowed him, all the agita-
tion he had known in his narrow inner life, had
found a voice. He was evidently a revelation
to himself. He trod the earth, cadencing his
step to the music in his mind, and as if he wore
invisible wings. The abjectness, the grovelling,
which belong to an unthinking animal had left
him for ever: even when we but glanced at him
between the trees, or saw him moving about, as
he thought, without observation, there was an
indefinable look of acquired manhood, which
only became more plain as the days wore on.
I no longer dealt with him as an animal, or a

348 WINDFALLS.

child ; for I felt conscious of a sense of reserve
in myself which he seemed to understand. He
also daily expressed a greater awe and respect
for me, and a fear of betraying all he felt of
kindness and regard for me.

My dear cousin, you will notice that hence-
forth I give you but few details of the adven-
tures of our island life. Not that they were
many; for day followed day only with a tropi-
cal serenity. There were excursions by the men
from time to time ; new regions of the island
explored ; new fruits, new game, and new fish
brought a change in our larder. But my mind,
as well as my father's, was henceforth so occu-
pied with the development of Sylvain that I
cared for little else.

Even if we try to imagine that he belonged
to that selection of the tribe of apes from which
as some have thought we ourselves have de-
scended, Sylvain must be considered an excep-
tional being. It would be hard to say which in
him was predominant, his intelligence, his affec-
tion, or his soul. It would have been impossi-
ble, even without the relation he bore to us, not
to feel deeply interested in this unfolding of his
powers. From a stranger, an oddity of crea-
tion, he became our friend. Between us, this

A BROKEN HEART. 349

attachment so absorbed us that, in view of his
startling supremacy above the brute creation,
we trembled for a life which had become so
dear. It seemed contrary to nature, that he
should retain the elevation he had reached, and
yet live. We felt for him somewhat as a mother
does when observing the too swift growth in
goodness and intelligence of a darling child ;
and, if harm should come to him through the
training which had civilized his wildness, we
felt that we were responsible for it. And though
we encouraged every exercise of the body and
its muscular powers, it was not very long be-
fore our fears seemed on the point of justifying
themselves. His eyes shone with a dangerous
brilliancy and retreated in their orbits. His
face became wan and thin, and his interest in
the gun and oar visibly diminished. Alarmed
at this, we cut short his lessons ; though we
would not prevent his enjoyment of the books
which we had given him, nor could we deny an
indulgence in searching questions concerning
the universe, the human soul, and its relation
with its Maker. After listening to our answers,
he fell at times into a mood so absorbed and
pensive that he did not hear us when we spoke
to him. When our voices recalled him from his

350 WINDFALLS.

reverie, lie turned towards us a face of such
mournful significance that we repeatedly asked
him of what he had been thinking. He stam-
mered a confused reply, but we could only make
out that he was struggling with some difficulty
of thought or some claim of conscience.

We began to fear that not only, through our
well-meant efforts, his body was suffering, but
that his mind was anxious and unhappy. My
father considered it to be the lassitude follow-
ing too much mental effort, and he organized
a party, with which he took Sylvain, to follow
round for some distance the circuit of the island.
They took with them provisions and water, am-
munition and guns, and did not return for sev-
eral days.

They had seen many strange and beautiful
things, some of which they brought with them ;
but alas ! the weakness and lassitude of Sylvain
were only the more evident after their return.

To brighten the melancholy of his life, we
invented, in imitation of those at home, several
games. Sylvain gratefully took his part in
these, and at times manifested his old agility
and strength ; but fatigue soon overtook him,
and then he, desired to rest upon the bench
which our interviews had made sacred for him.

A BROKEN HEART. 351

We again resumed in moderation his lessons,
oftenest reading aloud to him from the Bible

o

and the better poets. His eye kindled, his
breast heaved, and a look of aspiration, which
sickness only the better expressed, glowed in
his features. I became so much concerned for
his well-being that my nights were often sleep-
less, while my thought toiled after the enigma
of his cure.

As no visible malady distressed him, it was
idle to experiment with the little we had secured
of medicine through the thoughtfulness of the
mate. As he seemed the happiest in my society,
and as gentle exercise might prove of the most
benefit to him, I often walked with him along
the shore, pausing to explain the beauty of the
sunset above the sea, and where the golden
light fell upon the rugged cliffs, and the trees
which towered above them. This idea of beauty
in nature, though wholly new to him, he was
prepared for. At some point where, with sooth-
ing murmur the billows broke upon the snowy
shore in foam, and the distant headland swam
in rosy light, he would stand like one en-
chanted, and then slowly turning to me a face
of pathetic devotion, extending to right and
left his hands, murmur, 4 How beautiful ! it

352 WINDFALLS.

is God everywhere.' It almost pained me to
hear him speak thus ; for it made me feel as if
life were receding, and the soul, through the
body's rents, communing more directly with
nature and its Maker. And mingled with this
look of adoration, at times there came into his
face a twitch of pain, and a mournfulness which
desired to find relief in tears.

One day, observing this, I made him sit upon
a bank beside me. I tried, though my heart was
sore, to cheer him with words of encouragement
and dissipate his grief. To call away from him-
self his attention, I gathered a few orchids and
climbing flowers of the vine ; and, taking from
my hat a bit of ribbon, I bound them with it
and gave them to him. I remarked upon the
beauty of the flowers, their difference in form
and color, adding, 'The Father, who gives these
silent and needless creatures of his such grace
and beauty, will not forget you, Sylvain, the
nobler creature, which he not only has created,
but lifted, through instruction, to a knowledge
of himself.'

A shudder, as of mingled ecstasy and anguish,
shook him from head to foot ; and, with a cry as
of one wounded to the death, he exclaimed,

4 Yes, for Him I love them, and that He has

A BROKEN HEART. 353

thought of me. But oh ! for you, who have
taught me to know myself and Him, what shall
I say that I feel ; I cannot, I dare not.'

Bending towards him, I said, ' You dare not ?
What have you to conceal? What is there that
I should not hear? Has my father or have I
unintentionally wounded your feelings in any
way ? If so, forgive us, for we never meant it.'

4 Not that, not that ! ' cried Sylvain, twisting
his body as if in pain, and wringing, with inter-
locked fingers, his hands above his head. ' Any
thing, death is better than that you should think
me ungrateful, or that I have any thing to con-
ceal but the too great gratitude, the too great
love, I feel for you.'

Something in the tones of wildness, something
of passion and despair, made me involuntarily
start to my feet.

4 Ah ! do not leave me, do not hate me ; stay,
I must tell you every thing,' he cried. i I know
it is wrong ; I feel it should not be : but how
could I help it ? You, so thoughtful and kind,
are the one bright thing in my life, something
supernatural which has deigned to visit me and
draw me towards yourself. Can it be wicked
that I should feel through every fibre of my

heart your condescension, your kindness? If

w

35-i WINDFALLS.

so, you are in fault at least, that to see you, to
know you, must be to love you. You ask for
my secret, and you have it. It shall die with
me, and the confession of it shall never again
wound your ear ; that you bear to hear it and
do not fly, that I have the courage to say it,
gives me a joy I did not think to know on earth.
This gratitude, this adoring love, is not that
which is killing me. It is that I know, that 1
see, the gulf which I cannot pass yawning be-
tween us. You have lifted me to your society,
to your affection ; but that gulf even you cannot
bid to disappear. It is my fate to carry a fire
in my breast which must devour me. The life
you have given destroys itself, for it cannot
reach to your life. And I am happy in know-
ing that I die, because I am lifted where life and
love cannot exist together. What has a poor
wanderer of the forest, a homeless brute whom
you have made man without the privileges of
one, to do in a world where he is not wanted !

4 Do not pity me too much, for I would not
that either my life or my death should darken
yours. You are my sun, and I the poor insect,
happy to wither in your brightness, asking no
better doom than to perish near you.

4 1 do not ask you to say how much or in what

A BROKEN HEART. 355

way you love me ; for I know that such love as
mine is not for you to share. I see in your face,
in your eyes, its only substitute, a pity, a
grief, which is more than I ask. Make no reply
to the wild words of a dying creature ; but re-
member them in your heart, and least of all do
not let them turn to bitterness in your memory.

4 Say nothing of this to your father. It is
too foolish and too sacred, and might harm me
if I so wounded his pride. It is between us and
Him who fashioned me out of nothing, and gave
to you that human heart, against which my own
has dared to beat for a moment.

' Of this again my lips shall never speak. I
have only said already too much for your peace
and my own. I am feverish, weak, and weary.
Oh ! lead me back, that I may say farewell
where I always do ; for now all is finished for
me in this life : but I must not die here at your
feet.'

We returned to the cave in silence, where
Sylvain, not without emotion, took leave of my
father. Long after his feeble step, his drooping,
hopeless figure had disappeared from notice, I
stood gazing after him. A sense of a pain which
had come into my life, an obligation to an infinite
forgiveness and care, sobered my thoughts, and

356 WINDFALLS.

left me absorbed and helpless before the wonder
of this strange trial.

Sylvain did not return to us for many days.
My father augured no good to his health from '
this. Only I, in the silence of my heart, felt the
true reason, hardly daring even to think of it ;
and condemned for the first time with my father
to an unfilial reticence.

' The poor fellow,' said my father, ' is too weak
and ill to come the long distance from his vil-
lage. Not only I am certain that he suffers for
the loss of what we have taught him to enjoy but
how, among his fellow-brutes, should he have
that care and comfort which we, his new friends,
could give him ? If he come again, as I am sure
he will, we will prepare for him, near to our-
selves, all the dwelling he needs, and Mr. Cud-
worth shall see to it at once. I will have it like
his own, and yet with something of the advan-
tage he has seen in our habitation, and this may
tempt him to stay. For his mind's and body's
sake, it will be far better that he should be
within reach of us and our help, rather than
perish, if perish he must, among companions
unworthy of him, and with whom his new
thoughts meet no response.'

Mr. Cudworth prepared not far from the scene

A BROKEN HEART. 357

of our lessons, and placed upon the bough of a
tree quite near the ground, the hut which we
hoped Sylvain might accept from us as his own.
One morning, not long after this, as my father
and myself were gazing, while seated upon Syl-
vain's bench, without much hope, in the direc-
tion of his village, we saw him, with timid and
painful steps, and oh ! so wan and shadowy,
advancing with difficulty toward us. We ran
to meet him, and on either side sustained his
drooping limbs. A strange look of peace and
happiness flickered across his features as he said,
4 Forgive me : is it not best so ? I have come to
die among the only friends I know now, the only
ones to whom I could address my parting words.'

We drew him slowly to the form of jak-wood,
and sate beside him as he rested there. His
breathing was difficult, so that at first he spoke
but little ; but after a while his eye brightened,
his strength returned somewhat, and, taking one
of our hands in each of his, he pressed them,
saying with a smile,

' Indeed, I could not live, I could not die
among my kindred. You are my nearest and
dearest ; and is it not best even that I should
burden you with the presence of one whom you
have made what he is ? '

358 WINDFALLS.

We tried ah ! so vainly by smiles, ca-
resses, and soothing words to dissipate the deep
gloom which infolded his spirit. He smiled,
indeed, in return, and spoke words pleasant to
hear, but their natural sense was not in them.
We both saw that he knew his doom, and he
taught us to acquiesce in it as he had clone.

When we showed him the little hut with its
additions, which Cudworth had fashioned for
him, he seemed entirely pleased. Turning his
faded face to us, he said,

' Always the same kind friends ! How happy
I am that once again I am with you ! '

Dear Lady Betty, my falling tears prevent
my seeing what I write ; and, if they did not,
how could I deal out to you, pang by pang,
what the slow days now brought to us ? It is
riot well to lay bare for a stranger's eye the
fibres of a heart which shrank before my own.
There is a sacredness not only for the parting
spirit, but in a love so strange, so impossible,
that if I had not known it through the bitterest
sympathy, I should have said it never on earth
could be. No, I will not, drop by drop, measure
the departing life. It would be too much for
your interest in me and mine, too much for the
sorrow which bowed me to the earth if I did so.

A BROKEN HEART. 359

Slowly, hourly, Sylvain was withdrawn from
us. He faded like an exhalation into the forest,
even as like one we had drawn him from it.
Always unfaltering in his affection to us both, it
now seemed equally divided between us. By
not a word, by not a look, was he false to the
promise he had made me of being silent for ever-
more as to the love he bore ine.

He liked to have us read to him from the
Bible, and sing to him the hymns which had so
delighted him when healthier and stronger.
Then his face took on an expression which we
both noticed.

4 See, father,' I whispered, 4 this is our Syl-
vain,. the man we have created, the soul which
should be baptized. There is nothing there now
of the wild thing of the woods : all that is left
is ours, our own Sylvain.'

My father was greatly agitated, and withdrew
with me into a privacy beyond the hut.

4 My dear child,' he said, ' you have touched
a chord in me whose sound was already ringing
in my ears. Through us, by our help, has been
created a soul, perhaps immortal, and we have
no right to send it darkling on its way without
the hope a Christian feels in death.

4 You have said the word " baptism ; ' and,

360 WINDFALLS.

though I am a magistrate only and no clergy-
man, I think it right, the case is so wonderful,
to assume the duty and privilege of one. To-
morrow we will ascertain from Sylvain if he
shares in our desire. If he does, the rite shall
be accomplished.'

The next day our poor patient and scholar
was still worse ; so much so that my father feared
that, unless he hastened the ceremony, Sylvain
might leave us without its holy promises.

When my father spoke of this to him, lying
inert, and, as we feared, unheeding, before us,
with a great cry he half-rose from his couch, and
eagerly grasping our hands, exclaimed,

4 The last of friendship, the last of earthly
love, is now that with you both I should be
baptized in Christ : in the heaven you tell me
of we shall meet with equal souls, an equal
birthright and an equal love.'

As with failing voice he murmured the latter
word, I thought he seemed pouring all the fervor
of his dying soul, as from a cup, from his eyes
into my own ; and then, with a look of infinite
peace, he fell backward and was still.

I cannot write of these things, dear cousin :
the distress wounds me too much. Enough to
say, the next day, amid tears and pra} r ers, the

A BROKEN HEART. 361

ceremony of baptism was accomplished ; then
instantly a look of consecration and holy peace
took possession of his features for the few days
he remained on earth.

Two days after the ceremony of baptism,
Sylvain expired in my father's arms. It was
great comfort to us to see that all our fellow-
travellers shared sincerely in our grief ; for his
intelligence, simplicity, and affection had en-
deared him even to those who saw him but
rarely.

Cud worth had prepared a grave a little be-
yond the form of jak-wood, placing a shapely
head-stone before it. I made him prepare too a
cross cut from the most enduring wood, and this
I had put just within the head-stone. Upon
the bench, the scene of Sylvain's mental progress,
the place of so many happy hours, at my request
Cudworth deeply carved the following words :

Near tljts 23etufj
Hit tfje &ematns of a Creature of tfje 2KEoo&s,

om JFattfj anU Affection Itfteo to an Equalitg of
jFrteutisfjtp tottfj fjts tfoo surbtbing

Icabc tljfs ffficmovial
their ffiSHott&er anfc tfyeir Ilobe.

16

362 WINDFALLS.

After this sad event, this great affliction, life
was intolerable in our island. My father was
already proposing that we should seek upon the
shore another dwelling-place, removed from what
brought by its sight so much grief to us all ;
when, early on the second morning after Syl-
vain's burial, we were all startled from our slum-
bers by the clear and loud discharge of a
cannon.

Day was breaking, and, when we reached the
shore, we could plainly see, riding proudly at
anchor, the English ensign floating in the breeze,
our own dear ship, the long-lost ' Monarch.'

Soon the ship's boats were lowered ; and how
my heart beat, dear Lady Betty, when I saw
standing in the foremost one the manly figure
of our excellent captain, I leave you to imagine.
Soon the boats had reached the beach, and all
who came we at once conducted to our cave.
The captain much admired the skill and con-
trivance of his mate, and said that, grievous as
the loss of him had been to him, he was more
than compensated for by the great utility he had
been to us.

On reviewing our stores and utensils of vari-
ous sorts, the captain thought it wisest to leave
them behind in the cave, as he was fully sup-

A BROKEN HEART. 363

plied, and they might perhaps be useful to any
who should suffer the same fate as our own.

You may be sure that I did not among these
things include either my beautiful book-shelves
or my precious desk and manuscript. Of the
game and wild fowl, of which we had a fair
quantity the captain took advantage, and or-
dered them to be carried on board and added
to the ship's supplies.

On being questioned as to his disappearance,
he said that his ship was violently torn from the
reef by the tempest which had left us unharmed ;
that, finding the vessel leaked considerably, he
was obliged to put into an Indian port for re-
pairs. Then Mr. St. Clair had taken advantage
of this to reach his purposed destination by land.
After this, he proceeded upon his voyage, took in
his cargo as quickly as he could, being resolved
to visit again, in the hope of finding us, our
island, whose latitude and longitude he well
knew. On approaching it from its eastern side,
he had joyfully noticed the flag we had made
flying from its mountain-crest. This gave him
the greatest hopes of our safety ; and, though
he had anchored early in the night, he had for-
borne firing the cannon till there was sufficient
light for us at once to profit by his arrival.

364 WINDFALLS.

We each in turn thanked him for his kind
remembrance of us, and said we should prefer
to return to our native land in the stout ship
' Monarch,' than any that ever floated upon the
seas. My father briefly narrated the sad story
of Sylvain ; and the last thing we did before
leaving the island was to visit his grave.

All stood there in silence and wonder for
a while, till, seeing the captain looking at his
watch, after hastily plucking a few flowers
which had already sprouted from the tropical
mould, I leading the way, we all walked directly
towards the boats.

Our voyage home was uneventful and pleas-
ant. The last thing I did while on board was
to fold up and direct to you, my dear cousin, the
manuscript in which I had described our strange
adventures."

THE END.

Cambridge: Press of John Wilson & Son.

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

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